It won’t be hard for the LSU men’s tennis team to warm up for today’s doubleheader against Illinois State (5-7) and No. 75 St. John’s (9-2), as temperatures are expected to exceed 80 degrees – unusually hot for this point in the tennis season.
The first match against Illinois State, originally set for 3 p.m., is now slated to start at 1 p.m. to give players time to recover from the heat before the second match against St. John’s at 7 p.m.
“It hasn’t been this warm at the end of the season, let alone the middle of it, in the last several years,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. “We are certainly concerned about it and trying to take the athlete’s welfare into account by moving the match up to 1 [p.m.].”
Illinois State has struggled this season, coming off a 6-1 loss Monday to Tulane, whom the Tigers beat, 7-0, in February.
But St. John’s poses a larger threat to the No. 27 Tigers (9-4). The Red Storm is riding a five-match winning streak, including three straight 7-0 victories against Fairfield, Princeton and Fordham.
“We don’t know as much about these two teams as we do about most teams we play against,” Brown said. “We know from looking at their records that we have two teams that are very capable of making things difficult [for us], especially with the weather being the way it is.”
The Tigers are recovering from a narrow 4-3 victory against South Florida on Monday, after which Brown admitted the team struggled with the heat.
Brown said he’s looking at different combinations in the doubles and singles lineups to ensure the Tigers have as much energy as possible for both matches today.
The Tigers have one more non-conference match against No. 2 Ohio State on Monday before resuming conference play at Tennessee on March 23.
 
____ Contact Spencer Hutchinson at [email protected]