After a tough 7-0 loss to No. 11 Mississippi State on Saturday, the LSU men’s tennis team scored a gutsy win against No. 23 Indiana, 4-3, to close out the ITA Kick-Off Weekend on Sunday.
Nothing went well for the Tigers on Saturday, as they were only able to win a single set across all the matches, but they showed some resilience with their performance against the Hoosiers.
“That was a big win for us today. We were coming off a tough loss where we didn’t do much right,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “We really had to manufacture some confidence for today’s match.”
LSU took an early lead Sunday by winning the duals point thanks to an 8-3 win by No. 33 senior Stefan Szacinski and sophomore Chris Simpson. Freshman Tam Trinh and senior Roger Anderson also turned in a strong performance, defeating their opponents 8-4.
The singles matches drew a variety of performances from the Tigers.
Simpson was defeated by Indiana’s Isade Juneau 1-6, 4-6, and Szacinski fell to Sam Monette by the same score, which put Indiana up 2-1.
Senior Mark Bowtell quickly leveled the score at 2-2 by defeating Daniel Bednarczyk, 6-2, 6-3. Indiana regained the lead after senior Olivier Borsos was unable to build on his first set win, dropping the final two sets to Josh MacTaggart 2-6, 3-6.
With their backs against the wall, the Tigers needed both Trinh and Anderson to win in order to avoid going 0-2 over the weekend.
Both matches went back-and-forth, with the Tigers winning opening the opening sets, and their opponents taking the second.
Trinh eventually won a long tiebreak to win his match 6-3, 2-6, 7-6, and level the score once again at 3-3.
Anderson had an opportunity to win his match in straight sets, but lost the second in a tiebreaker. He came out firing in the third and took the last set 6-4, clinching the match for LSU, 4-3.
“Whenever you can pick up a win against ranked opponent, it will give you momentum going forward,” Brown said.
The Tigers return home to face South Florida at 12 p.m. on Feb. 3 at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium.
“We really had to manufacture some confidence today.”
