The Florida men’s tennis team earned a
rain-delayed victory over No. 13 Vanderbilt on Sunday afternoon, winning 4-1
after the match was moved indoors to the Perry Charles R. and Nancy V. Perry
Indoor Facility. After the Gators won the doubles point outdoors, the match was
moved indoors for singles and Mike Alford clinched the victory for UF.
With the win today, Florida closed the
regular season with a 14-9 overall record and 7-5 mark in the Southeastern
Conference. With the regular season complete, Florida will leave on Wednesday
for Oxford, Miss., and begin play in the conference tournament on Friday. The
Gators finished in a four-way tie for third place in the conference with Ole
Miss, South Carolina and Texas A&M but won the tiebreaker to earn the three
seed.
After about an hour rain delay, doubles
action began and the Gators were able to score the first point with doubles
victories on courts two and three. Alford and Luke Johnson beat Vanderbilt’s
Rhys Johnson and Marc van der Merwe 8-5 at No. 2 doubles. Florent Diep and
Gordon Watson then won 9-7 on court three against the Commodores’ Suresh
Eswaran and Jeff Offerdahl.
Just as singles action began, the rain began
falling again and the match was moved indoors. The change didn’t seem to affect
Florida’s Bob van Overbeek, as he dispatched Offerdahl 6-2, 6-2 at No. 3
singles. On court one, Piro dropped the first set to 10th-ranked Ryan Lipman,
but fought back to force a third set. In the deciding set, Piro earned a break
to go up 5-4, and then served it out for the three-set win, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Vanderbilt got on the board with a win at No.
2 singles when Gonzales Austin beat Diep in three sets. When Alford finally got
a chance to take the court against van der Merwe, he didn’t waste any time in
earning a 6-3, 6-1 win to clinch the team victory for the Gators.
