The 15th-ranked Florida men’s tennis team topped No. 26 Auburn, 4-3, on Sunday at the Yarbrough Tennis Center in Auburn, Ala., completing its third road weekend sweep against Alabama and Auburn under head coach Andy Jackson but its first in three tries since 2005. UF improves to 11-3 overall and 4-0 in the Southeastern Conference, while Auburn drops to 8-5 overall and 1-3 in league play.
“It’s very tough to win at Auburn, which I think is an under-ranked team right now,” Jackson said. “It takes a lot of toughness and character to get a win like this. You have to have a high-quality team to sweep Alabama and Auburn on the road, and this will only increase our confidence that we can win hard-fought matches like this. It also puts us right in the SEC race, so we’re looking forward to facing Southern California on Thursday and getting right back to our SEC schedule with Ole Miss on Saturday.”
The Gators dropped the doubles point for just the fourth time this season, with the tandem of sophomore Billy Federhofer (North Miami, Fla.) and junior Nassim Slilam (Paris, France) picking up UF’s lone win in the opening session from court three.
But freshman Spencer Newman (Miami, Fla.) helped get the Gators back on track to open the singles results, winning 6-3, 6-3 over Lucas Lopasso from the sixth position to even up the score at 1-1. No. 32-ranked sophomore Sekou Bangoura Jr. (Bradenton, Fla.) put Florida in the lead, 2-1, with a straight-sets win on court two against Tim Hewitt, 6-3, 6-4.
The Tigers pulled back even with the Gators at 2-2 behind Rafael Rondino’s court five victory against Federhofer, snapping Federhofer’s career-high five-match winning streak.
But a pair of wins in rapid succession put UF over the top, 4-2, as sixth-ranked senior Alexandre Lacroix (Paris, France) finished off 2010 All-American and current No. 23 Tim Puetz, 7-6(4), 6-3, at the No. 1 position and sophomore Bob van Overbeek (Boca Raton, Fla.) scored the clincher in a closely-contested 7-6(3), 7-6(2) court four match against No. 117 Andreas Mies, who was previously unbeaten in dual match play.
Auburn got its final point from a three-setter at the No. 3 position where No. 104 Alex Stamchev defeated Slilam, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, as Slilam suffered just his second dual singles loss of the season.
The Gators return home for a showdown with two-time defending NCAA champion and current No. 7 Southern California on Thursday, March 17, at 5 p.m. at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex in the last remaining non-conference match of Florida’s regular season. USC’s 18 men’s tennis NCAA championships are more than any other program in the nation. In February, the Gators faced the programs with the second- and third-most NCAA titles of all-time, defeating Stanford (17) and falling to UCLA (16) both at the ITA Team Indoor Championship in Seattle.
UF then resumes its SEC schedule with a Saturday, March 19, tilt against No. 22 Ole Miss at 1 p.m. Admission to all regular season home matches is free.
#15 Florida vs. #26 Auburn
Yarbrough Tennis Center
Auburn, Ala.
March 13, 2011
Doubles
1 – (43) Cochrane/Puetz (AU) def. Bangoura/Lacroix (UF) – 8-1
2 – *(46) Mies/Stamchev (AU) def. Butz/van Overbeek (UF) – 8-4
3 – Federhofer/Slilam (UF) def. Lopasso/Rondino (AU) – 8-4
Order of Finish: 1-3-2
Singles
1 – (6) Alexandre Lacroix (UF) def. (23) Tim Puetz (AU) – 7-6(4), 6-3
2 – (32) Sekou Bangoura Jr. (UF) def. Tim Hewitt (AU) – 6-3, 6-4
3 – (104) Alex Stamchev (AU) def. (125) Nassim Slilam (UF) – 6-4, 2-6, 6-2
4 – *Bob van Overbeek (UF) def. (117) Andreas Mies (AU) – 7-6(3), 7-6(2)
5 – Rafael Rondino (AU) def. Billy Federhofer (UF) – 7-6(4), 6-4
6 – Spencer Newman (UF) def. Lucas Lopasso (AU) – 6-3, 6-3
Order of Finish: 6-2-5-1-4-3
*Clinching point
