No. 17 Tigers Rally To Down No. 33 MSU Netmen 4-3
With the setback, State fell to 7-10 overall, 3-6 in SEC play. LSU jumped to 11-6, 4-5. The win was the Tigers' eighth in the last 10 meetings with State. It also marked only the fifth time in 86 home matches that MSU had lost after gaining the doubles point. The loss was also State's fourth by 4-3 scores this season.
It would take a battle to win the first point of the day. Bulldogs Romain Ambert and Jerome Le Belicard started things off, notching an impressive 8-3 upset of LSU's 13th-ranked tandem of Bryan Fisher and Jason Hazley at the No. 1 position. Tigers Cory Ross and Sebastian Rutka evened things with an 8-4 win at No. 2 over State's duo of Florent Girod and Michael Hailey. On court 3, the teams went to a tiebreaker, in which State's pair of Rene-Charles Combette and Max Fomine outlasted Brandon Nicholson and Peter Richman 12-10 for a 9-8(10) win.
In singles, however, the Tigers would get the early advantage and then some, taking the first set in five of the six contests. LSU would maintain leads in two of those, but State would rally to split sets in three others to make things very tight down the stretch.
MSU gained a 2-0 lead in the match when the junior all-American Ambert, ranked 25th nationally, won for the fourth straight outing, ousting LSU's Hazley at No. 1. LSU cut into the lead when Rutka downed State's 123rd-ranked Fomine 6-1, 6-4 at No. 4, breaking a five-match victory string for the MSU junior.
State upped its lead to 3-1 when the true freshman Girod overcame a set deficit at No. 5, blistering Ross in the final two sets for a 3-6, 6-0, 6-1 win. It was Girod's fourth win in five matches after falling in eight consecutive.
But LSU would rally to claim the last three matches of the day. At No. 6, Paul White downed MSU's Luc Maasdorp in a tight one 7-6(3), 7-5.
The final two matches went to third sets, where LSU prevailed. Richman, ranked 38th in the country, outlasted Combette for a 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win at No. 2. Clinching the match for LSU would be Fisher, who held off Le Belicard at the No. 3 spot 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.
"Frankly, I'm very disappointed in our team today," MSU head coach Sylvain Guichard said. "We did not play our best tennis, particularly in singles after we battled very hard to win the doubles. As I've said all along, every match this year has been all about fighting all the way through and we just did not do that today like we had in our last two matches.
"You also have to give LSU a lot of credit for coming out strong in singles and putting pressure on us. They are a solid team. But we will have to play better if we expect to win Sunday."
The Bulldogs will meet No. 31 Arkansas in Fayetteville Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. before closing out the regular season next Saturday, April 12, hosting fifth-ranked, arch-rival Mississippi as part of Super Bulldog Weekend activities.
#17 LSU 4, #33 MISSISSIPPI STATE 3
DOUBLES -- Romain Ambert/Jerome Belicard (MSU) def. #13 Bryan Fisher/Jason Hazley (LSU) 8-3; Cory Ross/Sebastian Rutka (LSU) def. Florent Girod/Michael Hailey (MSU) 8-4; Rene-Charles Combette/Max Fomine (MSU) def. Brandon Nicholson/Peter Richman (LSU) 9-8(10).
SINGLES -- #25 Ambert (MSU) def. Hazley (LSU) 6-3, 6-2; #38 Richman (LSU) def. Combette (MSU) 6-1, 4-6, 6-3; Fisher (LSU) def. Le Belicard (MSU) 7-5, 4-6, 6-4; Rutka (LSU) def. #123 Fomine (MSU) 6-1, 6-4; Girod (MSU) def. Ross (LSU) 3-6, 6-0, 6-1; Paul White (LSU) def. Luc Maasdorp (MSU) 7-6(3), 7-5.
numbers preceding names indicate current national rankings