The
11th-ranked Florida men’s tennis team picked up a key Southeastern Conference victory
on Friday evening, beating No. 15 Auburn, 7-0, in Gainesville at Linder Stadium
at Ring Tennis Complex. The Gators improved to 11-7 overall and 4-3 in the
conference.
“I’ve
got to give credit to Auburn because today’s match was definitely closer than
the final score indicates,” said head coach Andy Jackson. “We’re getting a
little bit better and that’s good. We’re looking forward to playing again on
Sunday against Alabama.”
Florida
started off with an 8-4 win at No. 2 doubles, as Bob van Overbeek and Spencer
Newman beat Dennis Lengsfeld and Lucas Lopasso. Auburn (14-6, 3-4 SEC) then
picked up an 8-6 win on court three when Dan Cochrane and Lukas Ollert took
down UF’s Tripper Carleton and Andrew Butz.
At
No. 1 doubles, the Gators’ Billy Federhofer and Nassim Slilam pulled
out a tight match, 9-7, against Auburn’s Alex Stamchev and Andy Mies. With both
duos holding serve for the majority of the match, the Gators went up 8-7 when
Federhofer hit a forehand winner up the line to break the Tigers’ serve.
Federhofer then held serve in the final game to clinch the doubles point for
UF.
“Billy
was our man of the match today,” said Coach Jackson. “The way that he handled
himself on the court and pulled through to clinch the doubles point was really
big for us today to give us the momentum going into singles.”
Newman
took down Ollert, 6-0, 6-2, on court two to begin singles action and push
Florida’s lead to 2-0 in the match. At No. 2 singles, Slilam breezed through
the first set, 6-1, before falling behind against Stamchev early in the second
set, trailing 3-0. After taking an injury timeout, Slilam battled back to win
the match, 6-1, 6-3.
Minutes
later on court three, Carleton secured the team victory with a 6-4, 6-4 win
over Cochrane. It was Carleton’s 11th dual-match win of the season, including a
5-2 mark in SEC action, tied for the most league wins on the team with Slilam.
