The LSU women’s tennis team travels to Atlanta this weekend to open up its fall schedule in the Georgia Tech Invitational.
The Lady Tigers start the weekend in doubles matches against Georgia State and singles matches against Georgia Tech on Friday.
LSU will face North Carolina State in doubles and Georgia State in singles on Saturday morning. The Lady Tigers will take on Georgia Tech in doubles and N.C. State in singles to close out the final day of the tournament.
All four teams playing this weekend finished last year in ITA Division I top 75 rankings — Georgia Tech at No. 18, LSU at No. 42, Georgia State at No. 55 and N.C. State at No. 75.
“It’s great competition to start off the year with,” said LSU coach Julia Sell.
Sell said after competing against each other in practice, her players are ready to get off the practice courts and into a real match.
“All of them have been playing and they’ve been competing, but I think it’s just time now to put them in the [dual match] format,” Sell said. “It’s very different when you’re competing for LSU than when you are competing for yourself, so they are very fired up for that.”
With the strong competition the Lady Tigers will face this weekend, sophomore Joana Vale Costa said she expects each team to give LSU its best.
“[The level of competition] is always high,” Costa said. “ I don’t expect it to be easy, ever. I got here in January and the first thing I said to [Sell] is that I’d never seen tennis at this level… I never expect easy.”
Sell said the tournament will be a good opportunity to give some of the freshmen experience with college tennis and the dual match format. But Sell is most ready to see junior Ella Taylor show off the improvements she made over the summer.
“Ella was here all summer,” Sell said. “We changed her forehand and she worked really hard and did an incredible job this summer. She’s really anxious to compete and get in a competition and a tournament format.”
Senior Noel Scott said she can’t wait to see how the freshmen and sophomore transfer Skylar Kuykendall blend into the Tiger team. She also said playing well this weekend could help push the Tigers toward her goal for the squad.
“We should be a really strong team this year,” Scott said. “My goal for the team is to make it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament. We should be able to do that.”
LSU women’s tennis opens fall schedule at Georgia Tech Invitational
September 18, 2014
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