The Florida men’s tennis team lost to LSU,
4-2, on Friday night at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex. The Gators fall
to 9-8 on the season and 3-4 in the Southeastern Conference, while the Tigers
improved to 9-7 and 3-4 in the league.
“To LSU’s credit, they fought really hard and
they hung in there,” said head coach Bryan Shelton. “They didn’t go away. We’ve
just got to do a better job of closing. We’ve got to be able to finish the
game, finish the match. We had too many games where we had 15-40 on their serve,
or 0-40, or 0-30, and we’re not converting. That comes down to mentally being a
little bit tougher out there.”
The doubles competition was tightly
contested, with the two teams splitting the top two courts. Stephane Piro and
Bob van Overbeek beat LSU’s Roger Anderson and Olivier Borsos, 8-5, on court
one, but the Tigers responded with an 8-4 win on court two.
The deciding match on court three went back-and-forth.
LSU’s Boris Arias and Chris Simpson jumped out to a 4-1 lead. Down a couple of
breaks, the Gators’ Mike Alford and Florent Diep fought back to even the match
at 7-7. After both sides held serve, the Tigers’ duo won a tiebreaker to claim
the doubles point.
In singles, Alford evened the match with a
6-3, 6-3 win on court four over Mark Bowtell. At No. 3 singles, Borsos beat Federhofer,
6-4, 6-4, to give LSU a 2-1 lead in the match. Next off was court one, where
the Tigers’ Simpson battled back after dropping the first set to win 2-6, 6-4,
7-5.
Luke Johnson, inserted into the lineup at No.
6 singles, rebounded after losing the first set in a tiebreaker to defeat
Harrison Kennedy, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-5. With the Gators trailing 3-2, LSU’s Arias
secured the victory for the Tigers with a three-set win over Watson on court
five, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
