No. 4 Women's Tennis Tops LSU in Regular-Season Home Finale, 6-1

Sunday, March 30

Gainesville, FL

1:00 PM

Florida Gators

#27 LSU

No. 4 Women's Tennis Tops LSU in Regular-Season Home Finale, 6-1

Sunday, March 30, 2008 | Women's Tennis

Florida seniors Whitney Benik (Delray Beach, Fla.) and Lolita Frangulyan (Bradenton, Fla.) helped the fourth-ranked Gator women's tennis team secure its 11^th consecutive dual match victory with a 6-1 decision over LSU in the team's final home match of the regular season at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex on a windy and unseasonably chilly Sunday afternoon.

After a short pre-match ceremony that recognized the two talented Gators for their contributions toward the program, Benik and Frangulyan stepped onto the doubles court together, where they provided the clinching doubles point with their 8-2 victory over Nicole Kantor and Hannah Robinson at the No. 2 position.

UF's two elder stateswomen then provided the first two singles victories of the afternoon, as Frangulyan needed 50 minutes to polish off Chandler Kleinpeter, 6-1, 6-1, at the No. 6 spot en route to winning her 14^th consecutive singles match. Benik followed two minutes later with her 6-0, 6-2 decision on court No. 4 against Kylie Adamek, netting her 11^th straight singles victory.

Sophomore Anastasia Revzina (Russia) the ensured a victorious Senior Day, when she posted a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Sloane Mathis on court No. 5 to provide the clinching dual match win in 58 minutes.

“I've been waiting for this day for so long and when it actually came, I can't eve describe how I feel,” Frangulyan shared. “I don't know if I feel happy or sad. I started to feel sad after my match when I was sitting on the bench and it hit me that this was it, that four years have flown by. I just gave it all I had during these four years and it's been one of the greatest chapters of my life. I have grown so much as a person and I will miss tennis terribly.”

“I feel like we will be back here in a couple of weeks (hosting the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament) so it didn't really feel like it was my last home match,” Benik said. “I just love playing on these courts and having everyone here cheers. I was an excited-nervous today. We went out and had fun. I think I'm playing my best tennis of my career right now and it's exciting.”

“I can't believe it's been four years with those two (seniors),” UF head coach Roland Thornqvist said. “Hopefully, we'll have two more home matches in the NCAA Tournament so that will really be their final appearance at home and that will probably be very emotional.”

Sophomore Csilla Borsanyi (Hungary) added the fifth team point of the match with her 6-1, 6-0 victory over Nicole Kantor at the No. 2 position in a contest that lasted one hour and 12 minutes.

LSU earned its lone win of the match at the No. 3 spot, before all eyes turned to the battle on court No. 1, where Gator freshman Julia Cohen (Philadelphia, Pa.) was battling 19^th-ranked Megan Falcon, formerly the No. 1-ranked singles player in the country.

Cohen took the tough opening set 6-2, that featured six breaks, before Cohen began the second with a break and held at love for a 2-0 lead and the Gator rookie held that one-break lead entering the sixth game, where Falcon broke back, held and earned another break to get the set back on-serve, as she took a 5-4 lead eventually resulting in a tiebreaker. Falcon earned the first mini-break to take a 2-1 lead with two serves to come, but Cohen claimed both points off of the Tiger's serve as she won five straight points to take a 5-2 lead in the breaker before eventually serving out for the win, which she did with a short underhand serve for an ace that ended the match just short of two hours.

“I was really proud of the way Julia forced herself to comeback after Friday's loss and beat a really good player in Megan Falcon, who was ranked No. 1 in the country last season and is a very talented and dangerous player,” Thornqvist said. “It was great to see Julia bounce back after a tough loss and earn a great win today.”

“LSU was a little banged up against us today and had to play three players who normally don't play and you can see that by the scores at the bottom of the lineup,” Thornqvist said.

The Gators continued their winning ways on the doubles courts, where they have yet to lose the doubles point. Cohen and Revzina needed just 25 minutes to earn the 8-0 shutout over Kylie Adamek and Sloane Mathis, winning the final 10 points of the match to improve to 12-0 as a doubles pairing.

Benik and Frangulyan held serve throughout the eight-game pro-set on court No. 2, where they earned breaks in a long fourth game, as well as in the sixth and the 10^th and final game of the match to secure the doubles point.

Megan Alexander (Dallas, Texas) and Marrit Boonstra (The Netherlands) provided a third doubles win after they topped Megan Falcon and Mykala Hedberg, 8-3, on court No. 1 in 50 minutes. The Gator pair lost their serve to begin the match, but broke right back and held to make things even. UF earned another break and Boonstra held her serve with an ace at the end to give UF a 4-1 lead. The Gators broke again in the eighth game and held the rest of the way for the win.

Florida (14-1, 8-0 SEC) plays its final three regular-season matches on the road, beginning with Friday's contest at Auburn, before playing at Alabama on Sunday. The Gators then wrap up the regular season on April 12^th at South Carolina.

Following Sunday's contest against LSU (10-8, 3-5 SEC) the Gators held a two-match lead in their hunt for the SEC regular-season title.

Women's College Tennis

No. 27 LSU at No. 4 Florida

Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex

Gainesville, Fla.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Final Score: Florida 6, LSU 1

Doubles

1. (8) Megan Alexander/Marrit Boonstra, UF d. Megan Falcon/Mykala Hedberg, LSU 8-3

2. Whitney Benik/Lolita Frangulyan, UF d. Nicole Kantor/Hannah Robinson, LSU 8-2*

3. (44) Julia Cohen/Anastasia Revzina, UF d. Kylie Adamek/Sloane Mathis, LSU 8-0

Singles