The LSU men’s tennis team will face off with four schools from the Lone Star State this weekend in the Rice Invitational at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium at Rice University.
The Tigers will be joined on the courts by host Rice University, Texas, the Univerisity of Texas-Arlington and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. LSU men’s coach Jeff Brown said he expects a competitive and busy weekend for his players.
“This is a strong tournament, one of the strongest we’ll play,” Brown said. “Texas is deep. Rice has a strong team. The good thing about this tournament is that we’ll get three doubles matches and three singles matches regardless, so that’s six matches for everyone.”
Eight Tigers will make the trip to Houston. Senior Cody Loup and sophomore standout Olivier Borsos will compete for the third time this season. Sophomores Roger Anderson, James Turbervill and Stefan Szacinski, juniors Mark Bowtell and Tom Knights and senior defending bracket A champion Julien Gauthier will make their 2010 debut this weekend.
Each team will seed their players one through eight for the weekend, creating four brackets. All players ranked one and two compose the first bracket. The three and four seeds will play in bracket two, continuing through bracket four.
Bowtell and Szacinski will represent LSU in the first bracket.
Borsos, the most successful Tiger through two weeks, is seeded sixth. Borsos is 4-2 in his first six matches of the fall and has caught his coach’s eye.
“We’ve certainly seen [Borsos’] play pick up since last year,” Brown said.
The Tigers participated in a rain-shortened Southern Intercollegiate Tournament last weekend in Athens, Ga., but coach Brown was content with the trip.
“It was fine. All we had left was a little doubles match,” he said. “It was a tough draw. There were probably 15 guys there that will be seeded in the top 50, so it was nice to see us compete out there, especially Borsos.”
Weather permitting, the Rice Invitational begins Friday and wraps up Tuesday.
Two members of the women’s team will continue fall LSU play this weekend at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championships Pre-Qualifying in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Junior Whitney Wolf and sophomore Keri Frankenberger begin play in the pre-qualifying rounds Saturday.
If the two can advance, they’ll attempt to qualify for the All-American Championships on Monday through Wednesday. Tournament play begins Thursday, Oct. 7.
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Contact Hunt Palmer at [email protected]