The LSU men’s tennis team started the spring season in fine form, defeating Lamar University and Nicholls State University in convincing fashion on Sunday at ‘Dub’ Robinson Stadium.
The LSU men’s tennis team overwhelmed Lamar on Sunday morning, dropping only one singles match on the way to a 6-1 victory.
The Tigers got off to a fast start against Lamar. The doubles pairing of junior Tam Trinh and sophomore Eric Perez shut out the Lamar team of Jeandre Hoogenboezem and Benny Schweizer, 6-0. Senior Chris Simpson and junior Justin Butsch recorded a 6-2 victory against Juuso Laitinen and Mikko Rajamaki to take the doubles point.
In singles play Simpson, Butsch, junior Boris Arias, freshman Simon Freund and junior Harrison Kennedy recorded victories. Trinh was the lone Tiger to lose a singles match, falling in a tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets.
LSU coach Jeff Brown said the victory against Lamar in the morning boosted the team’s confidence going into the second match against Nicholls State.
“It’s just an attitude that permeated from one match to the next,” Brown said. “So many guys did a good job with being professional basically this morning. I think it lended itself to the same thing in the evening.”

The Tigers did not lose a single match against Nicholls State during the evening portion of the doubleheader, recording a 7-0 sweep.
The doubles pair of Simpson and Butsch got LSU off to another quick start, recording a 6-2 victory against Nicholls’ Sam Meessen and Lukas Clemens. Tam Trinh and Eric Perez sealed the doubles point with a 6-4 win against the Nicholls State pairing of Bernard Wezemen and Kieran Cronin.
Butsch, Freund and Simpson finished their singles matches as winners, clinching an overall victory for the Tigers. Trinh, Kennedy and Arias added wins to complete a clean sweep of the Colonels.
Despite a lopsided score-line, several of the matches were hotly contested. Simpson found himself down 0-3 in the first set but rallied to win the first set, 6-4. He pulled away in the second set, winning it 6-1.
Simpson said he had to make several adjustments to turn the match around.
“I was just missing a lot of easy balls,” Simpson said. “I had to get my feet going.”
Arias found himself in a bigger hole than Simpson, dropping his opening set, 6-2. However, he too rallied, winning the match in a third set tiebreak.
Brown was impressed with his players’ resiliency.
“Sometimes you have little lulls in your concentration,” Brown said. “I think that’s what Boris had, and Simpson’s guy was just playing really well. He had to kind of hang around and weather the storm a bit, but both of them did a great job of doing that.”
The team now turns its attention to the ITA Kickoff Weekend in College Station, Texas. The Tigers will face San Diego on Friday and either Texas A&M or TCU on Saturday.