The LSU men’s and women’s tennis teams will play their first home matches of the season this weekend after both teams played two matches on the road in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Kickoff Weekend.The Lady Tigers (3-1) return home from Los Angeles to face SMU at 3 p.m. Friday at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium. SMU is 6-0 this season.LSU jumped up one spot in the ITA standings to No. 23 after defeating DePaul and losing to No. 3 UCLA.”I thought we did a really good job, especially playing back to back,” said women’s tennis coach Tony Minnis. “I was really pleased with … the way we took care of [DePaul] and the way we battled against UCLA.”LSU senior Megan Falcon is ranked No. 5 in the nation, and she improved her record to 16-4 with a singles win last Saturday against DePaul. Her career record is 81-14.Falcon and doubles partner Mykala Hedberg are ranked No. 17 nationally, and Hedberg said the two seniors want to “make everything count” in their final season.”Megan and I have been playing a lot of matches together, and we really understand each other on the court,” Hedberg said. “Having confidence up and down the lineup with her, we can go out and trust all our doubles teams to take care of business on their courts just as we’ll do for them.”The Tigers will play their home opener Saturday in the third match of their dual season.No. 16 LSU will face No. 17 Rice at 1 p.m., and men’s tennis coach Jeff Brown said the Owls will be a formidable opponent.”Rice has been in the top 25 several years now,” Brown said. “They are a very dangerous team; they have wins already this year against TCU and Miami. They are very tough at the top, and their No. 5 guy is ranked No. 60. We’ve got to be ready for a difficult match and expect it to come down to the wire just like our last two matches.”Junior Michael Venus said Rice junior Bruno Rosa and senior Christoph Muller are players to especially watch for, and the Tigers will have to be at their best to respond to their attack at the No. 1 and No. 2 positions.Venus and his freshman doubles partner Neal Skupski beat two teams ranked in the top 10 nationally last weekend against Texas Tech and Tulsa. Skupski said the team is excited to play at home and to have LSU fans cheering for them.”Our first match at home will bring a few nerves,” the freshman said. “But hopefully the crowd will be behind us unlike at Tulsa, where it got pretty rough.”—-Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]