No. 12 Women's Tennis Defeats Troy, 4-1

Saturday, February 21

Gainesville, FL

3:00 PM

Florida Gators

Troy

No. 12 Women's Tennis Defeats Troy, 4-1

Sunday, February 22, 2009 | Women's Tennis

The 12^th-ranked University of Florida women's tennis team earned a 4-1 victory over Troy University Saturday afternoon at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex.

The final outcome was the Gators' 58^th consecutive home victory, as well as its 70^th straight regular-season home win.

Florida entered the match short-handed for the third consecutive outing, with just five players taking the court and as a result forced to default the No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles positions.

Despite the added pressure of having to win both of the remaining doubles matches, the Gators emerged with the doubles points with relative ease, as the No. 2 pair of Marrit Boonstra and Joanna Mather defeated Mirte De Bakker and Stephanie Vieira, 8-1, in 37 minutes, before the No. 1 tandem of Jessica Alexander and Anastasia Revzina topped Rawia Elsisi and Leonie Guijt, 8-2, four minutes later to capture the team point.

“It was good for us to play today because we're not quite back to 100 percent physically from last weekend (at the National Team Indoor Championships). We had to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Monday and spent the entire day traveling home, so we didn't have a lot of practice time this week,” UF head coach Roland Thornqvist said. “Today was tough to play as a result, but I thought we had great attitudes and played with a lot of heart. Overall, I was pretty please with what I saw.”

Florida (6-3) carried its momentum from the doubles court into singles play, where the Gators received wins from Mather, Boonstra and Alexander, while Revzina and Barbara Pinterova led their respective singles matches when play was called once UF had clinched the team victory over Troy (3-4), which was playing its third match in as many days.

Mather was the first off the singles court, posting her first double-bagel win of her young career, defeating Leonie Guijt in 43 minutes at the No. 3 position to give UF a 2-1 lead, since Troy received the team point from the un-contested singles bout.

Boonstra improved to 8-0 this season at the No. 1 singles spot, defeating Rawia Elsisi, 6-2, 6-0. The Gator junior opened the showcase court with a break and never looked back en route to the decisive win.

The clinching match came on court No. 4, where Alexander won a hard-fought 6-4, 7-5 decision over Stephanie Vieira. The first set was on-serve through five games, before the two traded breaks. The only other break of the set occurred in the 10^th game, when the Gator rookie claimed that. The second opened with a pair of breaks and Alexander took another of Vieira's in the fourth game for a 3-1 lead. She held that advantage until the seventh game, where Vieria broke back and held to get the set back on-serve. Alexander held one match-point in the 10^th game, but Vieria was able to hold. Alexander then served a strong game and capitalized on double-match point in the 12^th game to earn the win.

Revzina held a 4-1 lead in the third set against Annabelle Bares on court No. 2, while Pinterova was near completing a great comeback at the No. 5 spot, where she fell behind 5-1 in the first, but rallied to take the set 7-5 and jump out to a 4-1 lead in the second when play was abandoned.

The Gators return to the court next Saturday, when the team travels to Tallahassee to play instate rival Florida State, Feb. 28 beginning at 1 p.m.

Women's College Tennis

Troy University at No. 12 Florida

Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex

Gainesville, Fla.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Final Score: Florida 4, Troy 1

Doubles

1. Jessica Alexander/Anastasia Revzina, UF d. Rawia Elsisi/Leonie Guijt, TU 8-2*

2. Marrit Boonstra/Joanna Mather, UF d. Mirte De Bakker/Stephanie Vieira, TU 8-1

3. UF defaults

Singles