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Friday, March 29, 2024
<p dir="ltr"><span>Marlee Zein won SEC Freshman of the Week after earning two wins. Her 11 victories are second-highest on the team.</span></p><p><span> </span></p>

Marlee Zein won SEC Freshman of the Week after earning two wins. Her 11 victories are second-highest on the team.

 

Marlee Zein entered College Station, Texas, excited to compete in her first SEC Tournament. The freshman out of Sugar Land, Texas, was coming off a two-win week, and won SEC Freshman of the Week for the second time this season.

Zein collected her 11th win this season, second-highest on the team behind sophomore Ida Jarlskog and clinched a second-round victory for the Florida women’s tennis team over Ole Miss 4-2.

“I think we are all playing better,” coach Roland Thornqvist said in a release. “We’ve said this before, but over the last three weeks, I would say, we have reached another level of performance. Now in the postseason, momentum is obviously a big part of it and we definitely have some wind at our sails.”

No. 24 Florida defeated the Rebels for the second time this season in the No. 7- No. 10 matchup earlier today to advance to the quarterfinals against No. 2-seeded South Carolina.

The Gators (12-10, 7-6 SEC) had a less than ideal start in doubles. Rebels’ duo Tea Jandric and Anna Vrbenska had no trouble with transfer tandem Tsveta Dimitrova and Jarlskog in a 6-1 beating on Court 2. The other two matches, UF’s No. 42 duo of Victoria Emma and McCartney Kessler against Sabina Machalova and Alexa Bortles, and Florida freshman tandem Zein and Sydney Berlin facing Rebels’ Tereza Janatova and Cameron Kriscunas, were tight.

Both matches entered the tiebreaker round, and Zein and Berlin were the first to fall in a 7-6 (7-3) loss to clinch the doubles point for the Rebels. Emma and Kessler continued playing on Court 1 and suffered a 7-6 (7-5) loss to complete the sweep in doubles.

“I think we’ve gotten to a point now as a team that we have learned sort of how to compartmentalize the doubles point and just treat singles as a separate entity,” Thornqvist said. “That’s really what you have to do to be successful.”

Florida rebounded quickly in singles with Berlin dominating in her first trip to the conference tournament in a swift 6-1, 6-1 victory over Kriscunas. No. 35 Kessler had a close first set where she pulled out a tight tiebreaker win. Momentum spilled over into the second set where she won six of the next seven games, resulting in a 7-6 (9-7), 6-1 finish and giving the Gators’ a 2-1 lead.

Dimitrova dropped both of her sets to Bortles for Ole Miss’ second point (6-4, 6-4) which tied the match back at two. From there it was all Florida, with No. 15 Jarlskog outlasting No. 94 Machalova in a three-set thriller (6-2, 3-6, 6-4) for the Gators’ third point. Florida led on the two remaining courts needing just one more win to advance to the quarterfinals.

The weather had a different idea, though, delaying the match again with Emma and Zein still competing on Courts 3 and 4, respectively. After the 45 minute delay, it took Florida just four minutes to finish the match for good as Zein defeated Janatova 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3 to complete the win.

“We’re happy to move on and get another crack at South Carolina,” he said. “I thought we played really tough last week so we are eager to give them another shot.”

Follow Victor Prieto on Twitter @victorprieto_11 and contact him at vprieto@alligator.org.

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Marlee Zein won SEC Freshman of the Week after earning two wins. Her 11 victories are second-highest on the team.

 

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