For the second-straight Saturday, the LSU men’s tennis team took on a top-10 Southeastern Conference foe, and the results were the same.
Saturday’s contest against No. 2 Tennessee ended closer than the 7-0 defeat No. 8 Georgia handed the Tigers, but the 4-3 loss against the Volunteers was never as close as the score indicated.
Tennessee’s John-Patrick Smith and Boris Conkic, the nation’s top doubles team, took down senior Sebastian Carlsson and junior Neal Skupski, 8-3.
Rhyne Williams and Tennys Sandgren then disposed of LSU sophomores Stefan Szacinski and Roger Anderson, 8-6, to capture the doubles point.
Smith, the No. 12 player in the country, knocked off LSU sophomore Olivier Borsos, 6-3, 6-3, and Sandgren dropped Szacinski in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1, to increase the Tennessee lead to 3-0.
Senior Julien Gauthier put the Tigers on the board with a 6-3, 7-6 win against Jarryd Chaplin, but Skupski succumbed to No. 3 Williams 6-4, 7-6, finishing the Tigers off.
“It was a very close and hard-fought match,” said LSU men’s head coach Jeff Brown in a news release. “The difference in doubles was small, and it was very tight in singles.”
With the outcome decided, a pair of Tigers gutted out late victories.
Carlsson bested Conkic, 6-4, 7-6, on court 5, and junior Mark Bowtell, the hero of Tuesday’s win against Nebraska, won his match against No. 52 Mateo Fago in a third-set super tiebreaker, 7-6, 2-6, 1-0.
“This match serves as motivation for the guys to take care of the little details in practice to make themselves better the rest of the way,” Brown said, “There are still a lot of things this team can accomplish.”
Meanwhile, the Lady Tigers entered the weekend on a three-match SEC win streak, but a pair of top-25 teams proved too much for ladies’ coach Tony Minnis’ team.
LSU failed to win a match, losing 7-0 against both No. 7 Georgia and No. 21 Tennessee.
Junior college transfer Olivia Rowlett, who had been ineligible for the early portion of the spring, made her LSU debut Friday, but even her presence wasn’t enough.
“We need to get tougher and be able to take advantage of our opportunities when we get them,” Minnis said.
 
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Contact Hunt Palmer at [email protected]