The University of Florida displayed some of its best individual tennis in years, as members of the women’s team set up an all-Gator final in singles and doubles at the ITA Women’s Tennis Southeast Regional at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex.
Freshmen Olivia Janowicz (Palm Bay, Fla.) and Alex Cercone (Seminole, Fla.) will square off in the singles final, while the doubles teams of sophomore Allie Will (Boca Raton, Fla.) and freshman Sofie Oyen (Leopoldsburg, Belgium) will take on junior Joanna Mather (Duluth, Ga.) and Caroline Hitimana (Waterloo, Belgium) for the doubles title. Both championship matches will begin at 3 p.m. on Monday.
The winners of both events earn the region’s qualifying spot in the USTA/ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, which will be held Nov. 4-7 at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. This is the second of the individual national championships played during the collegiate season, with the third and final one being the NCAAs in May.
“We had a fantastic weekend and competed incredibly well,” UF head coach Roland Thornqvist praised. “This was the best I’ve seen our team compete in many years at Florida. We were very resilient, played extremely well at the end of sets and got better each match of the tournament. This really was the best tennis we’ve played in many, many years.”
Four Gators reached the quarterfinal round, but top-seeded and fifth-ranked Allie Will withdrew from her match against Florida State’s Katie Rybakova, leaving a rested Seminoles to play the winner of the match between UF’s Oyen and Janowicz, who took the match against her fellow teammate 6-2, 6-7 (1), 6-1. Janowicz then upended Rybakova, 6-3, 6-4, to reach her first collegiate singles finals.
Cercone won each of her first five matches in straight sets during the tournament, including Sunday’s 6-4, 6-3 semifinal victory against Georgia’s Cameron Ellis and the 6-3, 7-6 (5) decision over Georgia’s Maho Kowase in the quarterfinals.
On the doubles courts, Mather and Hitimana took out Miami’s top-seeded and 15th-ranked team of Eichkorn and Bartenstein, 8-5 to reach the final, while the Gator tandem of Oyen and Will defeated Georgia’s Anghelescu and Ellis, 8-4, in their semifinal bout.
ITA Southeast Regional
Dan Magill Tennis Complex
Athens, Ga.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
UF Results Only
Doubles, Semifinals
Joanna Mather/Carolina Hitimana, UF d. Eichkorn/Bartenstein, Miami, 8-5
(18) Sofie Oyen/Allie Will, UF d. Anghelescu and Ellis, 8-4
Singles, Quarterfinals
Katie Rybakova, Florida State vs. (5) Allie Will, UF - walkover
Olivia Janowicz, UF d. Sofie Oyen, UF6-2, 6-7 (1), 6-1
Alex Cercone, UF d. Maho Kowase, Georgia, 6-3, 7-6 (5)
Singles, Semifinals
Olivia Janowicz, UF d. Katie Rybakova, Florida State, 6-3, 6-4
Alex Cercone, UF d. Cameron Ellis, Georgia, 6-4, 6-3
