The Florida Gators men’s tennis team (3-4) took on the No. 3 ranked Texas Longhorns (6-1) in Austin, Texas on Saturday.
The Gators came out firing and claimed the doubles point, but fell short in the match 4-3 after domination from the Longhorns in singles play. The Longhorns flipped momentum quickly after losing the doubles point, winning all six first sets in the singles matches.
The doubles action was tight with two matches reaching tiebreakers. Court 2 was the first to finish, where the No. 58 ranked Gators pair of junior Nate Bonetto and freshman Aidan Kim took down Longhorn team of junior Pierre-Yves Bailly and senior Siem Woldeab 6-4.
On Court 1, the Gator duo of sophomore Tanapatt Nirundorn and freshman Adhithya Ganesan upset the No. 5 ranked doubles team of senior Eliot Spizzirri and redshirt senior Cleeve Harper 7-6. The Gators clinched this match 7-0 in the tiebreaker to take the doubles point for UF.
On Court 5, Texas redshirt senior Cleeve Harper evened the match 1-1 at the start of singles action with a rout of No. 82 Nirundorn 6-1, 6-2.
Just four minutes later, the Longhorns took a 2-1 lead in the match after No. 1 ranked Eliot Spizzirri took down freshman Adhithya Ganesan 6-2, 6-2 on Court 1.
The burnt orange wave continued across the scoreboard as Texas freshman Gilles-Arnaud Bailly beat freshman Aidan Kim 6-2, 6-3. The clincher for Texas came from former Gator Jonah Braswell on Court 6. The No. 37 ranked sophomore took down Gator freshman Kevin Edengren, 6-3, 6-3.
The final two matches ended in third-set match tiebreakers due to Texas’ victory. On Court 4, Bonetto took the match 6-7, 6-4, 10-8 over Longhorn senior Siem Woldeab and captured Florida’s second point of the match. No. 89 ranked Gator freshman Jeremy Jin won his match on Court 3 over No. 53 Pierre-Yves Bailly 6-7, 6-2, 13-11.
The Gators will be back in action on Feb. 18 at 3 p.m. in Gainesville, Florida, to take on the Central Florida Knights.
Contact Chandler Hawkes at chawkes@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter @HawkesChandler.
