Men's Tennis Readies For ITA National Team Indoor Championship
Thursday, February 17, 2011 | Men's Tennis
The Florida men's tennis team has received the No. 10 seed in the 16-team ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship in Seattle, Wash., Feb. 18-21. The Gators will face seventh-seed Stanford in the opening round on Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern (12 Pacific) at the Seattle Tennis Club.
· Full Draw - ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship (PDF)
“Tennis is tennis no matter what surface you play on, but there's a drastic difference between indoors and outdoors,” head coach Andy Jackson said. “For us, the drastic difference is not that we don't have players that can be effective indoors. Frankly, I think we have a team that's going to be good indoors when we get a little bit of experience.
“We've got six guys from the state of Florida that basically have never played indoor tennis. They have the capability to play extremely good indoor tennis. They need to get a little experience because it is quicker, you need to be more aggressive, you need to take first strikes, [and it's] harder to make it physical. You need to make some adjustments. That's why we went to Illinois [last Saturday], so we could show them the adjustments they need to make and have a week to make them.”
The tournament is single-elimination, but each team is guaranteed three matches throughout the course of the first three days with the two teams that reach the final playing a fourth match for the championship on Monday.
UF advanced to the quarterfinals of last year's event in Charlottesville, Va., defeating Baylor before falling to Ohio State and subsequently defeating Georgia in a consolation match. Florida's last meeting with Stanford was in the first round of the ITA Indoors in 2009, with the Gators dropping a 4-3 heartbreaker. UF last played in Seattle at the 2006 ITA Indoors, where it reached the quarterfinals with a win against Penn before falling to Duke.
Florida is led by senior Alexandre Lacroix (Paris, France), who is ranked ninth nationally in singles and 15th in doubles with junior Nassim Slilam (Paris, France). Lacroix enters the weekend with 91 career doubles victories, two shy of tying Nathan Overholser's UF record of 93 (2000-03). Slilam, meanwhile, holds a 7-0 record in dual singles this spring while playing predominantly at the fourth position.
Sophomores Sekou Bangoura Jr. (Bradenton, Fla.) and Bob van Overbeek (Boca Raton, Fla.) also hold national singles rankings with Bangoura at No. 43 and van Overbeek at No. 74. Bangoura and freshman Michael Alford (Tampa, Fla.) are ranked as the No. 60 doubles pair despite playing just three matches together at the SEC Indoor Championships. Bangoura's main doubles partner in dual play has been freshman Andrew Butz (Vero Beach, Fla.), and the pair holds a 3-2 mark, while Butz has a 2-1 record in dual singles.
The Gators' lineup is rounded out by sophomore Billy Federhofer (North Miami, Fla.) and freshman Spencer Newman (Miami, Fla.). Federhofer and van Overbeek have a 5-2 mark in dual doubles this spring, while Federhofer has posted a 4-2 singles record. Newman, a January enrollee, holds a 2-1 record in dual singles.
First-round matchups
(1) Virginia vs. (16) Washington
(2) USC vs. (15) Duke
(3) Tennessee vs. (14) Georgia
(4) Ohio State vs. (13) Texas Tech
(5) Texas vs. (12) Kentucky
(6) UCLA vs. (11) Louisville
(7) Stanford vs. (10) Florida
(8) Illinois vs. (9) Texas A&M
