No. 6 Men's Tennis Hosts SEC Rivals in Crucial Weekend
Thursday, April 8, 2010 | Men's Tennis
The sixth-ranked Florida Gators men's tennis team (15-2, 7-0 SEC), one of three SEC squads unbeaten in conference play, hosts the other two undefeated teams this weekend at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex. UF will face No. 4 Tennessee (20-1, 8-0 SEC) at 3 p.m. on Friday and No. 8 Georgia (16-4, 8-0 SEC) at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
With just three matches per team left in the regular season, the outcomes of this weekend's showdowns will have a significant bearing on the SEC race.
“This is the best SEC weekend we've had at home since I've been here with all three undefeated teams playing,” head coach Andy Jackson said. “We need to play our best match of the year on Friday. At the same time, we don't want to make it into something that it's not. We want to go out and make it a physical match.”
The Gators come into the match on the momentum of 10 consecutive wins – a figure that might be higher if not for a pair of rainy days in Gainesville that halted matches against Florida State and Mississippi State while UF held the lead – and an 8-0 home record this season. It is also an opportunity for the Gators to give Jackson his 100th home win as the UF head coach, but the main prize at stake is the SEC championship.
“Every match we play is the championship match for us,” Jackson said. “We know we have to go undefeated to win the SEC, but we're focused on Tennessee right now. We haven't given one thought to Georgia yet.”
The match will be hard-fought from the first serve, as Florida has dropped the doubles point just twice this spring and Tennessee has done so only once. Both teams lost the doubles point in their most recent match – Florida at Kentucky and Tennessee against Mississippi State – but both demonstrated their power by scoring victories in spite of the early setback.
Florida faced Georgia earlier this season, downing the Bulldogs, 4-0, in the consolation round of the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va. At the time, Florida was ranked 12th and Georgia seventh.
Florida is led into competition by the nation's seventh-ranked singles player, Alexandre Lacroix (Paris, France), who has posted a 13-3 record in the No. 1 position during dual match play and is 28-7 overall in 2009-10, including 18 wins against ranked opponents.
In addition, Antoine Benneteau (Boulogne-Billancourt, France) has a 14-2 record in dual match play, the highest winning percentage on the team (.875). Sekou Bangoura Jr. (Bradenton, Fla.) leads the team in overall spring wins with 17, while Bob Van Overbeek (Boca Raton, Fla.) has posted a 7-0 singles record during SEC competition.
With so much at stake the team is hoping to see a true home-court advantage in the stands this weekend.
“Gators are great about providing a great atmosphere, and we would love the extra boost of having a great crowd,” Jackson said.
Admission to all home regular season matches is free.
-UF-
