The LSU women’s and men’s tennis teams will head to the Lone Star State to take on Rice University at noon on Sunday in Houston, Texas.
Coming off a successful weekend with ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships qualifications in the bag, the No. 18 women’s tennis team looks for momentum against a team the Lady Tigers have not defeated in nine years.
“I think it’s time for revenge,” said junior Joana Vale Costa. “I think we’re all ready to go out there and compete.”
Last year’s home match against the Rice Owls is burned in the players’ memories like any tough loss. At that time, the Lady Tigers’ roster had three new players on the team and some suffered from injuries.
This weekend, the program goes into the matchup with a 4-0 record and its highest ranking since 2009, but for LSU coach Julia Sell it’s more about the progress than the record.
“It would be nice to get the W, but our focus right now is just to get better and better every match,” Sell said. “If that means we get the win then it’s great, but otherwise we need to keep improving.“
Sell wants to see her players press as hard as if they were behind to extend leads in deciding situations after almost allowing comebacks against Georgia Tech last weekend.
With ITA Indoor Championships around the corner, the players also focus on taking care of their body.
“National Indoors is three days of hard competition,” Vale Costa said. “It’s time to practice as hard as we can, but we have to take care of our bodies at the same time because the season is just getting harder and harder from here.“
For the men’s team (1-1, 0-0 Southeastern Conference) the match against the Owls (4-0, 0-0 Conference USA) serves more as warm up and orientation for the season.
After losing in the final round of the ITA Kickoff Weekend against then-No. 13 South Florida, the team just missed qualifying for the ITA Indoors Championships.
“It will be good to see where we are following having played a couple matches,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. “The guys are excited to see their improvements, and usually there’s a big difference in improvement from the first weekend to the second.”
When the team hosted Rice at the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium last year, the Tigers dominated in a 6-1 win.
Brown said the team hopes to make improvements at every position, while looking forward to putting practice into play on Sunday.
You can reach Markus Hufner on Twitter @Hufner_TDR