The Florida men’s tennis team can get one step closer to clinching the SEC regular-season title this weekend.
The Gators will play LSU and Texas A&M at home. For the Gators, this will be their first and only weekend series this season. The match versus the Tigers will be on Friday at 5 p.m. and they will play the Aggies on Sunday at noon.
Florida will look to continue its dominance at the Ring Tennis Complex. UF has won 41 out of their last 45 matches at the Ring and are 7-0 this season. These two matches will continue a streak of 14 straight matches for the Gators against ITA top-50 teams. The Tigers are ranked No. 32 and the Aggies are ranked No. 7.
Florida is coming off a week where it was awarded with numerous accolades. Sam Riffice won SEC Freshman of the Week for the second time this season. He is 7-0 in SEC singles matches and has won nine in a row.
The undefeated week for No. 51 Riffice was highlighted by an upset of No. 31 Alex Brown of Illinois, beating him in straight sets after Brown had previously beaten Riffice in Chicago on Feb. 16 at the ITA National Indoor Team Championships.
Florida reached its highest ranking in the ITA team rankings at No. 2 this week. It is the team’s highest ranking since 2006.
The Gators are 8-0 in SEC play this season, their best start since 2005 when they began 11-0 and won the SEC regular-season championship.
LSU enters the match with a 14-5 overall record but only a 2-4 record in SEC play. Three out of its last four losses have come to teams ranked in the top 25, and UF will be the highest ranked opponent LSU has faced. The Tigers don’t have any ranked singles players and only have one ranked doubles tandem, No. 51 Rafael Wagner and Joey Thomas.
Florida is 7-1 against LSU with Coach Bryan Shelton and beat them in Baton Rouge last year.
Texas A&M, meanwhile, will be a more formidable opponent.
The Aggies enter with a record of 16-3 overall and 6-0 in SEC play. They have won 13 in a row and 20 in a row in SEC play, a streak that dates back to 2017.
The Gators and Aggies are the only teams undefeated in SEC play. During its 13-game winning streak, Texas A&M has beaten four ranked teams, capped off with a win over No. 1 Ohio State on March 11. TAMU beat the Gators three times last season, including beating them in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to advance to the NCAA Final Four.
The Aggies have four ranked singles players in No. 32 Valentin Vacherot, No. 62 Hady Habib, No. 76 Barnaby Smith and No. 77 Carlos Aguilar. Aguilar and Smith are ranked No. 23 in doubles.
The Gators are 2-9 against Texas A&M under Shelton.
Follow Noah Ram on Twitter @noah_ram1 and contact him at nram@alligator.org.
The Gators are 8-0 in SEC play this season, their best start since 2005 when they began 11-0 and won the SEC regular-season championship.
Noah is a third year journalism-sports and media student from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He has been with The Alligator since Spring 2019 and has covered men’s and women’s tennis, gymnastics and volleyball. When he isn’t on his beat, Noah is usually sadden over his beloved South Florida sports teams, such as the Heat and Dolphins.
