Louisiana Tops Georgia State in Matchup of Sun Belt Men Tennis Leaders

[NewsCopy]

Four consecutive wins in singles play lifted the No. 47-ranked Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Men's Tennis team to its latest quality win, a 4-1 triumph over Georgia State on Sunday, March 27 at Cajun Courts.

Louisiana Athletics
RaginCajuns.com
PRESS RELEASE

[60swerethebest]

Amazing team.

[moorecajun]

I finally got to make it out to Cajun Courts Sunday and was treated to some excellent tennis. For you tennis fans I highly recommend making the time to go out for a match. I also was fortunate enough to meet our coach. He is a very easy coach to talk with and has a very good plan for the future of Cajun tennis!

GEAUX CAJUNS!

[RaginDave]

So this weekend was huge for the Cajun's tennis team. Beating both Georgia Southern and Georgia State and moving to 4-0 in conference play. Here is why it was so big.

If the conference tournament is set up like last year and I assume it will be with 7 teams. Only the #1 seed will get a 1st round bye. This means that if you are the #1 seed you will automatically be in the semifinals. The way it will work is #1 gets a bye, #4 plays vs #5 and that winner plays the #1 team. #2 plays #7 and #3 plays #6.

This means the Cajuns will only have to win 2 matches to win the conference tournament.

If the season ended today this is how it would play out.

#1 UL
vs
#4 Coastal Carolina vs #5 UTA

#2 Georgia State vs #7 Troy
vs
#3 USA vs #6 Georgia Southern


There is even more to the story about this weekend. As I stated during the RR podcast our real struggle all season has been at the #1 position with Karlo Kajin. Well he seemed to be struggling this weekend even more, in fact, I think he might be injured. He has lost 4 straight matches and 6 of his last 8 including bad losses to OU, Georgia Southern, UTA and Coastal Carolina. Then the biggest match of the season vs Georgia State, I assumed he might be moved down from #1 in the lineup, but he was not in it except for doubles. That meant (and again, I stated this on RR) our biggest issue is depth. So we moved the lineup around. Our traditional #2, Alejandro Sanchez Gonzales moved to #1 where he did his job and won at #1. Our normal #3, Orio Fillat Gimenez moved to #2 was up in the match but it ended up unfinished. Same at #3 where Calin Postea who has been #4 and #5 all season went unfinished. Kacper Dworak moved down in the lineup from his usual #3 position to #4 and got a win, and Vasil Dimitrov moved up to #5 from 6 and won. But the biggest victory came from Alejo Ferrer Chueca who came into with a 1-2 record with losses to UTSA and Rice with his lone win vs UNO at #6 and another match where he went unfinished vs Xavier won impressively at #6 vs Georgia State. He lost the first set 6-7, but won 6-3, 6-0 in the last two sets to secure the win vs Georgia State.

I don't know what the issue with Kajin is, but we really need him back for the stretch run. We have a tough USA match and even though they are currently #7 in the conference a sneaky good Troy team who are 12-9 but have a ton of really close losses to some quality teams including UTSA, ETSU, Florida State. Georgia State, Coastal and Georgia Southern and then we finish the regular season vs a very good FAU team.

I was thinking about this last night, the SBC is going to be much better next year in tennis than it has been in the past. Next season we lose a competitive team in UTA but we gain 3 new teams, two of which are pretty good. UTA will be leaving the conference and they are competitive, but we gain ODU who currently sits at #56 on the season in the ITA rankings. We gain JMU who is currently not in the Top 75, but is 12-4 on the season and is one of the better teams in the CAA. And we gain USM who is not very good this season but are sitting at 8-7 on the season. Marshall does not have a men's tennis team.

Next season we should see UL, USA, Georgia State, JMU and ODU at the top of the conference with Troy, USM, Georgia Southern and Coastal near the middle to bottom. Another reason why adding these teams is a big improvement. The SBC tennis has gotten better.

[IberiaCajun]

Thanks for the update.
Nice to see a team with a plan for the future.