The No. 9 LSU women’s tennis team hits the road for its first Southeastern Conference matchup of 2016 against No. 38 Alabama at 5 p.m. today at the Roberta Alison Baumgardner Tennis Facility.
The Lady Tigers have reached their highest ITA ranking in program history.
However, LSU’s early success has come against nonconference opponents, and the start of SEC play signals at the beginning of a gauntlet of formidable opponents for the Lady Tigers.
Every SEC team is ranked within the ITA top-75, including six squads featured in the top 15 overall.
“Auburn and Alabama are the first of the SEC rivalries we face, and they are like nothing else in the country,” said LSU co-head coach Julia Sell. “You’ve got eight of the SEC teams ranked in the top-25, just a strong conference with the depth but add in the rivalries and I think it makes it some of the most compelling matches and stories.”
As the Lady Tigers enter a tougher stretch of their schedule, they come in on a hot streak, winners of five of their last six matches.
LSU’s latest victory came against Arizona, 5-2, on Feb. 26.
The Lady Tigers dominance is fueled by the success of their top three singles players, who have a combined record of 31-5.
Sophomore Ryann Foster has been dominant this season, going 12-0 in singles.
“From coming in my freshman year, we weren’t ranked and finished maybe ranked in the ‘60s,” said senior Ella Taylor. “But each year we continued to get better and better, and I knew with Ryann and [freshman] Jessica [Golovin] coming in we could do great things and continue to climb the rankings because we still have a lot of matches left to play.”
Tonight’s match challenges the normal rhythm of the team’s practice routine, which usually features matches on Wednesday afternoons and Sunday evenings.
“This is the first time we’ve ever played a Thursday/Saturday matchup, and we got three of them this season,” Sell said. “It’s kind of exciting to do something different but our preparation mainly shifts our days off before and afterwards, and we’ve adjusted that way.”
The timing of the match takes a backseat to the challenge presented by the Crimson Tide’s talent-laden roster.
Although Alabama is 4-4 this season, all of the Crimson Tide’s losses this year have come against top-25 opponents with three of the four losses coming during the ITA Indoor Championships on Feb. 5-8.
In its last match, Alabama fell to then-No. 11 Oklahoma State, 4-0, on Feb. 27.
LSU has fared better than the Tide against the top 25 opponents with a 2-2 mark this season.
Despite the squad’s record-breaking success this season, there are no easy wins ahead in the competitive SEC slate.
The Lady Tigers will continue conference play this weekend with a match against Auburn on Saturday at Yarbrough Tennis Center.