Thornqvist Gets UF Coaching Win No. 200 as W-Tennis Blanks LSU

Sunday, March 7

Gainesville, FL

1:00 PM

Florida Gators

Louisiana State

Thornqvist Gets UF Coaching Win No. 200 as W-Tennis Blanks LSU

Sunday, March 7, 2010 | Women's Tennis

The University of Florida women's tennis team swept LSU 7-0 on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex and presented head coach Roland Thornqvist with his 200th victory in his nine years with the Gators.

“It's clearly a byproduct of all the great players and the credit goes to them more than anything that I've done,” said Thornqvist of his 200^th Gator victory, as he improved his overall head coaching record to 275-78 in 14 years overall. “Today was no exception. We had much better focus today than we had Friday night (in the 7-0 win against Arkansas) and I was very happy to see that. For me, the highlights for today were our play on singles court No. 1 and the comeback on doubles court No. 3.”

The sixth-ranked Gators (1-2, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) needed little time in winning the doubles point, before turning their attention to the singles court, where Florida won all six in straight sets and helped Thornqvist improve to 200-28 at the helm of the program.

Freshman Allie Will (Boca Raton, Fla.) posted her third career double-bagel, as she dropped Kailtin Burns, 6-0, 6-0, at the No. 2 position in 46 minutes.

“I focused on every single point, which is hard to do in a match like that because you don't want to think about how well you're playing or how fast it's going. I was happy that I kept my focus throughout the sets, which I've had trouble doing in the last few matches.”

Senior Anastasia Revzina (Moscow, Russia) was the next Gator off the court, as she downed Nicole Kantor, 6-1, 6-1, in 67 minutes and gave Florida a 3-0 lead.

Freshman Caroline Hitimana (Waterloo, Belgium) made the most of her first singles competition in an SEC dual match, as she provided the clinching point with a hard-fought 6-4, 6-1 over Gainesville native Keri Frankenberger at the No. 4 spot.

Sophomore newcomer Claire Bartlett (Chattanooga, Tenn.) tallied a 6-0, 6-2 win against Ebie Wilson at the No. 5 position, as she won the firs eight games of the match, before Wilson was able to get on the board with a break and held, but Bartlett settled and won the final four games to earn the win and improve to 21-10 in singles action.

Sophomore Joanna Mather (Duluth, Ga.) proved tough in her return to the singles court from an injury that had kept her sidelined from the singles court since November, as she battled past Kylie Adamek, 6-3, 6-2. The match began with four consecutive breaks, before both competitors held. Mather took the lead with a break in the seventh game, en route to winning seven consecutive games, as she won the first and jumped out to a big lead in the second. The final five games were all breaks, with Mather coming out on top with the win and improving to 11-1 in SEC singles matches in her career.

The featured match on court No. 1 didn't disappoint, as Gator freshman Lauren Embree (Marco Island, Fla.) battled Whitney Wolf and collected the 6-1, 7-5 win. Embree held for a 5-3 lead in the second, but Wolf rallied and earned a break of her own after holding serve. The Gator rookie, however, broke again and served out for the impressive victory.

“Whitney Wolf played at a very high level, played loose and hit ball the ball very hard,” Thornqvist said. “Lauren was forced to play under pressure for the better part of the second set, which I was very happy to see her do.”

Florida's No. 2 doubles team of Lauren Embree and Anastasia Revzina continued their recent dominance, improving to 13-1 overall and 10-0 in dual match action, as they needed just 27 minutes to blank Keri Frankenberger and Hannah Robinson, 8-0. Embree and Revzina lost one total point in the first three games and had very few where they surrendered two points in a game en route to their 11^th consecutive victory.

“We were all over the court and poached the net – that was our goal since we started playing together,” Revzina shared. “We were very active and didn't make many mistakes.”

Marrit Boonstra and Allie Will began their match on court No. 1 in a similar impressive fashion, racing out to a 5-0 lead, capped by Boonstra's ace. Kaitlin Burns and Whitney Wolf refused to go down quietly, and battled back to three straight games, before the Gators ended the trend with a break at love. LSU came right back with a break of its own, but Boonstra and Will regrouped with another and Boonstra closed out the match with the 8-5 decision and secured the doubles point for Florida.

Playing together for just the second time, Claire Bartlett and Brittany Borsanyi (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) seemed down and out of their No. 3 match to Nicole Kantor and Ebie Wilson, but staged a great comeback to win the match, 8-7 (7-4). The Gator pair lost its serve to begin the match and appeared to get things back on-serve with a break in the sixth game, but couldn't hold and LSU maintained its edge. UF then went down a second break and trailed 7-3, before staging a rally to win the next four games and force a tiebreaker at 7-all. Again, LSU jumped out early, taking a 4-2 with the serve, but the Gators rallied and won the final six points to close out the remarkable comeback.

“That comeback at the number three singles court was one of the highlights of the day,” Thornqvist said.

Florida's win over LSU (2-8, 0-2 SEC) extended the program record to 76 consecutive home wins, as well as 87 regular-season home victories.

Those streaks will be put to the test on Wednesday, March 10, when Florida continues its busy stretch playing host to No. 2 North Carolina at 5 p.m.

Women's College Tennis

LSU at No. 6 Florida

Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex

Gainesville, Fla.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Final Score: Florida 7, LSU 0

Doubles

No. 1 (6) Marrit Boonstra/Allie Will (UF) d. Kaitlin Burns/Whitney Wolf (LSU), 8-5*

No. 2 (34) Lauren Embree/Anastasia Revzina (UF) d. Keri Frankenberger/Hannah Robinson (LSU), 8-0