The Florida tennis teams split their matches against Tennessee on Friday.
The No. 4 women’s team remains undefeated in conference play with a 6-1 win over the No. 16 Volunteers in Knoxville.
In Gainesville, the No. 6 men’s squad suffered its first conference loss to No. 4 Tennessee in a hard-fought 4-3 match.
UF knew the Volunteers would be one of the best opponents it has faced all season, especially in doubles competition.
The No. 2 doubles team in the country, Davey Sandgren and John-Patrick Smith, proved to be too much for the Gators’ Alexandre Lacroix and Antoine Benneteau, the No. 12 pair, in an 8-6 decision.
Florida tied the doubles competition 1-1 with an 8-5 win by senior Daniel Cash and freshman Bob Van Overbeek.
Tennessee clinched the doubles point when the No. 4 pair Boris Conkic and Rhyne Williams defeated UF’s No. 49 doubles team, Joey Burkhardt and Sekou Bangoura Jr.
UF men’s coach Andy Jackson felt the team had a chance to overcome the 1-0 deficit in singles, but fell short.
“The doubles point wasn’t the whole match,” Jackson said. “Sometimes it’s easy to look at that point and say that’s what decided the match, but we could’ve won singles on three, four or six, and it would have changed the outcome.”
In their effort to win at least four of six singles matches, the Gators played with emotion. At times it was too much emotion.
Tennessee led the match 3-2 when sophomore Nassim Slilam was in the third set of his match against Davey Sandgren. After losing the first two games of the set, Slilam fought hard to win the third. When the game went to Sandgren, Slilam slammed his racket to the court. The consequence of his outburst was a fourth game awarded to Sandgren.
Slilam fought back to win the next three games, but Sandgren clinched the victory for Tennessee when he won the set 6-4.
Bangoura won the last match to be played out on court No. 5 to make the final score 4-3 favoring Tennessee. The loss was Florida’s first at home this season.
The No. 4 women’s team was pushed to three sets at Nos. 2-5 in singles, but managed to close strong in a 6-1 over No. 16 Tennessee.
The first win over a top-20 opponent in a true road environment this spring brings the Gators to 9-0 in the SEC.
Freshmen sensations No. 9 Allie Will and No. 14 Lauren Embree are undefeated during conference play. Will has yet to lose a singles match this season.
Both the UF tennis teams face Georgia on Sunday. The women’s squad plays the Bulldogs in Athens at 1 p.m.
The men’s team hosts Georgia at 1 p.m. It will be another opportunity for coach Andy Jackson to capture his 100th home win at UF.
