LSU men's tennis beats South Carolina

• Advocate news services
• Published: Mar 29, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The 19th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team picked up its 10th win of the season Friday afternoon by defeating South Carolina, 6-1, at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.

The Tigers (10-6, 2-4 SEC) now own a 21-7 all-time record over the Gamecocks (8-9, 0-7 SEC).

In doubles, the Tigers picked up the two victories they needed on courts one and two to get the early point.

On court one, juniors James Cluskey and Michael Venus controlled their match throughout against Pedro Campos and Yevgeny Supeko and came out with an 8-4 victory. The win improves the top Tigers tandem’s record this season to 11-3. They have won nine of their last 10 matches.

LSU’s senior pair of Kevin Dessauer and Colt Gaston started with a 3-1 lead on court two when the South Carolina pair of Ivan Cressoni and Diego Cubas began to fight their way back in the match. With LSU’s lead at 5-4, the Tigers took three of the last four games to get the win, 8-5, and clinch the doubles point for the purple and gold.

Venus put LSU ahead by a 2-0 score by capturing a straight-sets victory over Supeko, 6-3, 6-4, on court one.

Cluskey improved his unblemished conference record to 4-0 by defeating Cressoni, 6-4, 6-2.

With LSU up 3-0, freshman Sebastian Carlsson clinched the victory for LSU with a 7-5, 6-2 win against David Wolff on court six. Carlsson owns a team-best 21 wins this season.

South Carolina captured its only point on court two when Cubas defeated Jan Zelezny, 6-4, 7-5.

Dessauer and Gaston put the finishing touches on LSU?s strong performance as they each overcame a first set deficit to win their match and give LSU a 6-1 win. Dessauer and Gaston each played a super tiebreaker instead of a third set since LSU had already clinched the victory.

“It was a good team effort in doubles,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “We didn’t take any match for granted. We had the same complete effort in singles. Everybody was expecting it to come down to their match. It turned out to be more difficult than the score would indicate and it was a great effort by our guys.”

The Tigers will have their final home match of the season Sunday when they host the eighth-ranked Florida Gators at 1 p.m. LSU’s three seniors, Dessauer, Gaston and Zelezny, will be honored prior to the match.

#19 LSU 6, #70 South Carolina 1