Mason Landreth Signs with Hometown Ragin' Cajuns Men's Tennis Program

[NewsCopy]

Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Men's Tennis head coach Luc Godin announced on Thursday (Nov. 10, 2022) the signing of Mason Landreth, a highly successful tennis athlete from Lafayette, to a National Letter of Intent to join the program beginning with the 2023-24 academic year.Ente

Louisiana Athletics
RaginCajuns.com
PRESS RELEASE

[BeauCajun]

Kin to Sonny? Looks like a good get.

[JMV JustMyView]

Kin to Sonny? Looks like a good get.

If he can play tennis and good as Sonny plays music then we will be ok.

[zephyr]

Kin to Sonny? Looks like a good get.

Not sure but his parents are Maria and Jonathan.

[RaginDave]

His brother is Grant, who is already on the tennis team.

Tennis is tough for US born players right now and has been for the last 10 or so years. A player may look great playing HS tennis, but the competition is significantly lower than what the European players are seeing when they come over. Mason is a 4 star recruit his brother Grant was also a 4 star, to give you an example of how this works out, in 2020 Grant was the only US player we signed to that recruiting class, we signed 4 European players in that class including Alego Ferrer Chuca who played #6 for us at the end of the season, Oriol Fillat Gimenez (who played mostly at #2 for us last year), Stefan Milenkovic (who never made it to the Cajuns) and Alejandro Sanchez Gonzales (who played mostly #3 and #4 for us last year). In 2021 we signed 2 European players Vasil Dimitrov from Bulgaria and Calin Postea from Romania, last year Vasil played 23 singles matches at mostly #5 and #6 as a true freshman, while Calin played 18 singles matches mostly at #4, 5 and 6 as a true freshman, while Grant played a total of 0 singles matches. Grant did play 5 matches as a true freshamn in 2020/2021 but those matches were against PVAMU twice (1 win and 1 unfinished), 1 win vs Alcorn State and 2 wins over Loyola of New Orleans, meaning he was used in matches that the coaching staff believe we were easily going to win. I am not taking anything away from Grant or Mason, as they are very good player. It is unfortunate that the European players come into the US college tennis world heads and shoulders above some of the top US players.

It appears that Mason might be a little ahead of Grant when he gets here, which is good news. Just for a comparison.

Mason was ranked #1 in the State of Louisiana in 2022
Grant was ranked #4 in the State of Louisiana in 2020

Mason was ranked #18 in the Gulf States in 2022
Grant was ranked #22 in the Gulf States in 2020

Mason was ranked #159 in the Nation in 2022
Grant was ranked #189 in the Nation in 2020

I am not saying he will not have success with the Cajuns, I am just saying normally even very good US players have a serious uphill battle in College Tennis.

The main reason for this is usually the kids coming from Europe, South American, Australia, New Zealand, ETC are both traditionally older (usually 2 - 3 years older) and have been playing against ATP strength competition (kids that plan on playing professionally at some point), while the US born players have to travel around the country to play in tournaments that feature at best players of their same level ability, if this is just based off of HS tennis play they are playing, traditionally much weaker competition.

I wish the best for both Grant and Mason and believe me, I always root for our US born players to get some playing time. It is just going to be hard, especially with the talent this team has right now. I am super excited about this upcoming season. The Cajuns return Vasil Dimitrov (should be #6), Kacper Dworak (should be #4), Oriol Fillat Gimenez (should be #3), Karlo Kajin (should be #1), Calin Postea (should be #5) and Alejandro Sanchez Gonzales (should be #2) and Alego Chucea who was our #1 bench guy last year, plus a host of good young talent including:

Evan Edwards a 4 star recruit from Fayetteville, AR
Thomas Garbarino a 2 Star recruit from Lafayette, LA
William Ribero a Columbian born player with not a lot of information on
Grant Landreth a Junior who has played a little for the Cajuns since joining

I am happy to see Grant and Mason might be on the team together and would love to see them play some doubles at some point.

Good luck to this team, I would suspect, if healthy the Cajuns could start the 2023 season ranked in the top 50 or so teams. Allot will depend on Karlo Kajin who was injured down the stretch last year and probably was the reason we failed to make the NCAA tournament, a health Kajin and we are a top 35-40 team in the country.

[Turbine]

RaginDave, many here may know you from your incredible Football updates and informative Podcast edition of We're Talkin, but I came to appreciate your tennis knowledge that you have been sharing for YEARS.

Thanks

[RaginDave]

RaginDave, many here may know you from your incredible Football updates and informative Podcast edition of We're Talkin, but I came to appreciate your tennis knowledge that you have been sharing for YEARS.

Thanks

Thanks Turbine, tennis has been my passion since I started playing at age 9. I still play today at 52, so while I love all sports and football is fun for me, tennis is what I know best. We have been lucky to have some great talent come through this facility over the years and this year might be one of the best teams we have had in a long time, considering we get every player back from last year as well as a bench that we did not have last year.

[BeauCajun]

Looking forward to some spring matches. Hopefully they bring back the food.

[RaginDave]

Looking forward to some spring matches. Hopefully they bring back the food.

I agree the food was a great deal, they need to bring it back.

[ZZeebart21]

Kin to Sonny? Looks like a good get.

Yes, Sonny's nephew.

Z