In what was expected to be a tight match, the opposite occurred. No. 38 LSU (13-9) was granted a tough finish to the season, facing five top-25 teams in their last seven matches, and so far, the team has yet to defeat a single one.
No. 24 Texas A&M (19-10) was a tough opponent for sure, as they have been a force in the SEC over the past few seasons. But they haven’t been nearly as consistent as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky have been this season, and they arguably should not have swept this Tiger team.
That is just what happened though.
What went wrong?
Doubles wasn’t what placed LSU in a hole, as those matches actually went about as well as they could have, especially considering how ineffective LSU has been during that portion of the match throughout the season and how solid Texas A&M’s duos are.
The Tigers took the first doubles points with a 6-4 victory from Kent Hunter and Gabriel Diaz Freire on Court 3. At this point in time in the match, the other two courts were active with Texas A&M holding a slight advantage on each.
That advantage would hold throughout the remainder of each match, as the Aggies would claim the doubles point with two 7-5 victories on Courts 1 and 5. At this point in time, it seemed like the match was bound to be close to the end, as each of those matches had been tied at 5-5 at one point and could have gone either way.
Losing doubles like that was understandable, and even admirable, but what happened in singles made this match sting a lot more for the program. Five of the six first sets would go the Aggies’ way and though the Tigers would manage to pave realistic avenues for victory throughout the second sets, those paths were short-lived and quickly blocked.
Joao Graca managed to obtain a 6-5 lead in his second set before losing 50-0 to send the match to tiebreakers and losing the tiebreaker set 4-7. Similarly, Kent Hunter went up 4-3 before dropping the last three games and ultimately losing 4-6, 4-6.
If those matches had gone into a third set, there would have been four courts in position to win with momentum partially on their side due to the bounce back. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case, Ronnie Hohmann and Gabriel Diaz Freire would end up losing anyway, as Texas A&M completed their sweep of the Tigers.
Not an ideal match for an LSU team that’s looking to get their groove back, but it isn’t the end of the season yet. The Tigers have No. 12 Kentucky and Arkansas left on their slate, winnable matches if they play their cards right.
The first of those occurs next Friday at the LSU Tennis Complex.
