As a men’s tennis program in the SEC, looking at your calendar to find that you have a matchup against Florida in the near future is a punch in the gut. Their dominant season of tennis has included 7-0 and 4-0 sweeps of No. 9 South Carolina and No. 11 Georgia respectively, an 8-2 record against teams ranked No. 12 and above and a perfect record in conference play.
That occurred in the SEC, a conference that has five teams ranked above No. 11 and all but two teams featured in the top-50 (not including Arkansas, who is currently ranked No. 51).
No. 42 LSU faced insurmountable odds in this one, having not scored a single point against Florida in over three years. But despite facing the onslaught of ranked players and duos that is Florida tennis, the Tigers were a few games away from creating a path to a legendary upset.
After losing in doubles 1-2, Florida dominated the first sets of singles, only surrendering one of six. It seemed that LSU’s run would quickly be put to rest in the quarterfinals.
That might’ve come true in the end, with three Tigers losing in two sets to give Florida the points they needed, but LSU was in a realistic position to split singles when the match was clinched, with Kent Hunter holding a lead against No. 87 Duarte Vale and Gabriel Diaz Freire in position to even his match and force a third set.
Vlad Lobak would ultimately lose to No. 27 Sam Riffice to give the Gators their match-clinching point, but he didn’t necessarily make the second set easy for his opponent. Facing elimination from the tournament, Lobak managed to even the score at 4-4 before being defeated in his last two games, as Florida finally put away a team that had more success than many expected.
Boris Kozlov was the lone victor for the Tigers, ending LSU’s scoring drought against Florida with his fourth straight two-set victory. He’s played tremendously well down the stretch, putting LSU in positions to win in the last four matches with mixed results.
It would have been interesting to see if the Tigers could have pulled off the upset had Lobak evened his match on Court 2, but the Tigers still exceeded their tournament expectations and advanced, something they hadn’t done since 2015 and have the potential to do in the NCAA tournament if they are invited (something they have not done since 2016). It will be interesting to see whether or not this team has reached their season’s peak.
