Tuesday, 09/08/2009

BATON ROUGE--Sebastian Carlsson and Neal Skupski of the LSU men’s tennis team debuted at No. 18 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Preseason Rankings the ITA announced Friday.

 

Carlsson and Skupski notched a 4-2 record during fall tournament play last season before Skupski teamed up with Michael Venus to earn doubles All-America honors and the No. 4 spot in the final ITA Polls. The All-America honor for Skupski was the first ever received by a freshman member of the LSU tennis team.

 

Carlsson, currently entering his junior season with the Tigers, posted a 10-7 mark with Julien Gauthier and played primarily on court three last season.

 

The Southeastern Conference posted eight doubles teams in the top 25. Tennessee’s Davey Sandgren and John-Patrick Smith posted at the top of the rankings with Georgia’s Jaime Hunt and Nate Schnugg earning the No. 2 spot. Florida’s Antoine Benneteau and Joey Burkhardt listed at No. 5, Vanderbilt’s Adam Baker and Alex Zotov appeared at No. 12, Auburn’s Tim Puetz and Alex Stamchev came in at No. 21 and Kentucky’s Brad Cox and Eric Quigley closed out the list at No. 24, respectfully.

 

Skupski and Carlsson will be in action along with the rest of the team as the Tigers kick off their first tournament of the fall at the Rice Invitational scheduled for Sept. 11-13 at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium in Houston, Texas.

 

2009 ITA Preseason Rankings

NCAA Division I Men's Tennis
Administered by the ITA
September 4, 2009

 

Rank      Player                                   Player                                   School

1              Davey Sandgren               John-Patrick Smith              University of Tennessee, Knoxville

2              Jamie Hunt                       Nate Schnugg                     University of Georgia

3              Robert Farah                    Steve Johnson                     Univ. of Southern California

4              Houston Barrick               Sanam Singh                       University of Virginia

5              Antoine Benneteau          Joey Burkhardt                    University of Florida

6              Moritz Baumann              Marek Michalicka                Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

7              Jean-Yves Aubone            Vahid Mirzadeh                   Florida State University

8              Bradley Klahn                   Ryan Thacher                      Stanford University

9              Diego Cubas                     Ivan Machado                     University of South Carolina

10           Austen Childs                    Simon Childs                       Univ. of Louisville

11           Derek Drabble                   Martin Kildahl                     University of Washington

12           Adam Baker                       Alex Zotov                           Vanderbilt University

13           Dimitar Kutrovsky              Josh Zavala                         Univ. of Texas at Austin

14           Justin Kronauge                 Matt Allare                         Ohio State University

15           Steve Forman                     Jon Wolff                            Wake Forest

16           Anton Stryhas                     Kiryl Harbatsiuk                  Sacramento State

17           Michael Shabaz                  Jarmere Jenkins                  Virginia

18           Neal Skupski                      Sebastian Carlsson              LSU

19           Austin Krajicek                   Alexey Grigorov                   Texas A&M

20           Oleksandr Nedovyesov      Ilija Martinoski                    Oklahoma State

21           Tim Puetz                           Alex Stamchev                     Auburn University

22           John Peers                          Victor Melo                         Middle Tennessee State University

23           Bassam Beidas                   Alex llompart                      Pepperdine

24           Brad Cox                             Eric Quigley                         Kentucky

25           Jordan Rux                          Maros Horny                        Baylor University