As the rain falls down in Baton Rouge, the LSU men’s tennis team travels to Tampa, Fla., for the South Florida Fall Invitational in what is expected to be a dry weekend.LSU men’s coach Jeff Brown said the weather shouldn’t be too wet. There is a 20 percent chance of rain Friday and Saturday and a slight chance of thunderstorms Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.Last season, the Central Florida Fall Invitational was cut short because of rain.”It looks good,” Brown said. “Hopefully that holds.”The Tigers will battle South Florida, Miami and Central Florida this weekend. Action begins Friday and ends Sunday.”South Florida’s a very strong team this year,” Brown said. “We’ll see them later in the year here in a dual match. Central Florida’s a very solid team, and Miami’s a very good team as well. It will be the last chance for these guys in the fall to see where they are.” The player who earns the most singles points throughout the weekend will be named the singles winner, and the player to win the most doubles points will be named the doubles winner.”When it’s a dual match in the spring, there’s six singles and three doubles,” Brown said. “In this event, each day there’s eight singles matches and four doubles matches. There’s no team scoring being kept.”Every team will play each other this weekend, but no two players from the same team will face off.”We’ll see where we stack up against a couple teams that will probably be in the top 25 in Miami and South Florida,” Brown said. A new player has risen to the top for LSU in each tournament this year. Junior Julien Gauthier won the singles title at Rice, sophomore Neal Skupski made it to the third round of the All-American Championships and last weekend, junior Sebastian Carlsson made it to the semifinals at the ITA Southern Regionals.Assistant coach Danny Bryan said versatility and depth are essential for the team to succeed going forward.”It’s better that we’re getting more guys who are stepping up,” Bryan said. “We’re excited about what’s happened in the fall with Julien and Neal and Sebastian having breakthrough tournaments.”Bryan said he wouldn’t be surprised if a new face leads the Tigers this weekend.”We’re really looking for someone else to step up and for the guys who already have [stepped up] to continue their success,” Bryan said.Freshman James Turbervill could be next to shine. He said he’s felt like he’s continuously progressed since the beginning of the season. Turbervill still has a long way to go to win a tournament. He made it to the round of 32 at the ITA Southern Regionals.”The first tournament in Rice, I didn’t start off great,” Turbervill said. “Since then, I’ve seemed to get a little bit better, and hopefully I can push forward again at USF.”—–Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]