The LSU tennis teams hosted their first event after opening their facility to the public.
On Thursday, Sept. 8, at the LSU Tennis Mixer, some of the players shared their thoughts on the new tennis club and their experience at LSU. The team played tennis with the attendees and got one on one time to converse. This was a great opportunity for the people that attended to get familiar with the facility and meet the tennis teams.
There are 10 members of the men’s team with five of them being new players. Currently all five of the new players are transfers.
Transfer student Stefan Latinovic is playing for LSU after spending the last four seasons at Wichita State with Head Coach Danny Bryan. Latinovic is a redshirt senior with two years of eligibility left.
“I’m looking forward to continue working with Danny, I have a good relationship with him and I’m looking forward to keeping it the same way,” Latinovic said.
Being a former LSU tennis player, Bryan feels that it’s great to be back. Not only did he play for LSU, but he spent eight seasons as an assistant coach for the Tigers. He is focused on developing a good relationship with the team.
“I’m really just focused on the process, the goals are to set the foundation for the program moving forward as a team. Working individually with the players to build on their strengths, and be engaged in practice.”
Players Ronnie Hohmann and Welsh Hotard are looking forward to competing with the team. With so many new players from different schools it will be great to see how they work together, even though tennis is a very individualized sport. Having a black belt in karate, Hohmann is no stranger to individualized sports.
“I’m really looking forward to building a good relationship with the team,” said Hohmann.
Along with forming relationships with the team, Bryan also wants to get to know the club’s members and residents. He has a few things he hopes to achieve with the new tennis club.
“Obviously it’s an opportunity for one to give back, let the community have access to this world class facility. [It’s] also a way to have the community around and build relationships with our players and get them involved. Hopefully they’ll come support us at matches and cheer us on,” Bryan said.
The players all have the same opinions on the tennis facility being open to the public. Louisiana natives Hotard and Nick Watson are excited to play in front of their friends and family, and Hotard has two older siblings that were also LSU athletes.
“It’s great that other people in the community can use the LSU facility to play,” said Watson.
Hohmann said, “we’re going to have a lot more people here all the time and it’s great that other people can enjoy the beautiful facility.”
The whole team seems eager to start competing together. The first tournament of the pre season will be on Sept. 23 at Princeton University.
