After finishing last season 12-14 and making the NCAA tournament, the Tigers are looking to build on a season filled with ups and downs. They added three graduate transfers, two that played in the fall in Vlad Lobak and Gabriel Diaz Freire, and one that made his LSU debut on Saturday in University of California transfer Kent Hunter. 

The team is also returning most of the cast from last season, such as Ronnie Hohmann, Boris Kozlov, Nick Watson, Joao Graca, Ben Koch and Benjamin Ambrosio, players that spent much of the season on Courts 1-6 in singles. The team was without its standout in Hohmann today though, who will miss a few weeks due to a surgery.  

That opened the door for the team to test out more of their talent, and the results were mixed. 

The first match went the Tigers’ way, but it was closer than expected. LSU cleaned house in doubles, but singles were a bit more interesting, with the team going 4-2 in those matches. It was still a decisive 5-2 victory, but in a match they were expected to sweep. 

The second match started off the same way, with two Tiger duos clinching the doubles point early and the third finishing out their match victorious. The difference was singles, which started incredibly well.  

Courts five and six were dominated by the Tigers, with Ambrosio and Diaz Freire each having quick victories of 6-4, 6-1 and 6-2, 6-2, respectively. Hunter would follow those with a win of his own to clinch the match. 

After starting his match slowly and trading wins, Hunter seemed to find his footing, picking up steam in the middle of the first set. He would clutch that set out with a dominant tiebreaker performance, before sweeping the second set to finish his match 7-6 and 6-0.  

In his LSU debut, he had a perfect day, concluding with two victories in both singles and doubles. He was excited about his debut performance with the team, stating that this was the first time he had competed in about nine months.  

“[There was] definitely a little bit of shaking off the rust,” Hunter said regarding the change in his performance through the second match. “I changed my mind set a little bit, just realized that I can’t overpower every ball and I have to slow down sometimes.  

The second match was a slight improvement overall, with the team winning 6-1. Still not perfect, but it is evident that there is some rust there.  

Diaz Freire, who had a similar performance to Hunter in both matches, stated that he was proud of the way his team played and mentioned that losing Hohmann before the first match was rough.  

“Overall, our performance was good for the first match,” Diaz Freire said. “We’ve been working hard for these past three weeks, plus the fall.” 

“We were unlucky with Ronnie [Hohmann’s] injury, that wasn’t the ideal situation that we want to start the season with.” 

With Hohmann out for the first few weeks of the season, the team will likely have a hard time, but it should be a good opportunity for some of the depth to build their skills. Their next action comes against South Carolina next weekend at the ITA Kickoff tournament.