Last season, the Southeastern Conference totaled 11 ranked teams (including LSU), five of which the Tigers have already faced this fall. Despite facing twice as many ranked teams in last weekend’s event as they did in their first, they managed to improve their winner’s bracket record.
At the Olivier Borsos Invitational LSU hosted Oct. 2-4, LSU advanced a single player to the second round of singles. LSU was not on the same level as the other teams there, and it showed, but it was clear what they needed to work on.
The team hosted two ranked teams that weekend (No. 10 Texas A&M and No. 39 Mississippi State), a number that would double in their next event. Three ranked teams (No. 12 Tennessee, No. 15 Ole Miss, and No. 26 Alabama) traveled to Starkville along with LSU, where they would play at the Bulldog Challenge, hosted by No. 39 Mississippi State.
Despite the amount of talent featured at this event, the Tigers tripled their day-one win total from the last event, sending three players to the second round. Three other matches were decided in a third set or during tiebreakers, and realistically could’ve gone LSU’s way.
They would total six singles wins by the time the event was over, which isn’t amazing, but it’s a step in the right direction. Coach Chris Brandi agreed but stated that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to get where they want to be.
“I think we’re really close,” Brandi said. “We have proven we can play in doubles with anybody, but in singles we’re not showing the consistency quite yet.”
“We’ve got three months left before we start the spring season. We know what we need to work on, whether we can get there or not, we’ll find out. I think we’re on the right track and every guy that’s played the last couple of weekends understands what level we want to be at.”
Along with the lack of experience creating a gap between LSU and the stacked teams in the SEC, the team is also without three players that will likely have an impact on the team and increase their win total come spring.
Senior Joey Thomas is recovering from surgery, freshman Joao Graca has to sit out the first five matches of the season and freshman Benjamin Ambrosio won’t be with the team until January. Though Ambrosio’s impact is unknown to the coaches, Thomas and Graca are a different story.
Coach Brandi endorsed both of them, stating that Thomas has been consistently great in doubles and has shown flashes of being great at singles too. Graca has illustrated potential in practice.
“[Thomas] is one of the toughest guys ever, and he never complains at all,” Brandi said. “[Graca] is a guy that at our level has a tremendous amount of talent and potential and we can’t wait to see him play a match for the Tigers.”
It’s difficult to monitor this team’s progression when fall competition is this tough and limited. But the team’s level of talent has clearly progressed upwards over the last few years, and they will look to further prove themselves in November and after that, the spring season.
