Women's Tennis Opens 2012 Season on Wednesday Hosting Troy
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 | Women's Tennis
Florida's launches its 40th season of varsity competition on Wednesday, when the Gators play host to Troy beginning at 3 p.m. at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex, where admission to all regular-season matches is free.
When the Gators take the court against the Trojans (0-2) it will have been 246 days since Florida stunned Stanford, 4-3, on May 24th and won its fifth NCAA Championship in program history. On Wednesday it will be time to turn the page and focus on the 2012 season.
“We're excited to start over again,” said UF head coach Roland Thornqvist, who enters his 11th season at the helm of the Gator program. “We've put in a lot of good work. We've been running a lot and working on our foot-work. Fitness-wise, I think we're right where we need to be. Chemistry is really good. We haven't done as much doubles work at this point as we maybe should have and that's something we'll try to address in the next week or 10 days. We're hitting the ball fantastically. Everybody has become a better hitter. I thought we competed very, very well last year as a team. This year it looks like we're a little better hitting and making contact with the ball. We did a lot of drills during the fall to improve our pace of play and judging by the first week of practice in the spring it looks like all that work has paid off.”
Thornqvist enters the 2011-12 dual match season with a 249-30 record in 10 seasons with the Gators; he is 324-80 in his 15-year career.
“I think our players have the same goal here every year,” Thornqvist said of the lofty expectations for the 2012 team. “We don't really talk about those things, honestly. We try to make each month its own chapter and try to improve individually and as a team, month by month. As long as you can have that mindset where you try to become better and better, I think everything else falls into place.”
Florida has won 21 consecutive matches entering the 2012 dual match season, tied for the 10th-longest streak in program history.
The Gators are 36-3 all-time in season-opening dual matches and have won 27 consecutive season-openers, with the last loss a 7-2 setback at Miami on Feb. 1, 1985.
The Gators are 3-0 all-time against the Trojans, with all three meetings taking place in Gainesville. The last match between the two programs was a 7-0 Gator sweep on Feb. 7, 2010.
Troy launched its 2012 dual match season on Jan. 14, falling to No. 46 Kansas State, 6-1, before losing the following day to No. 6 Georgia, 7-0. Both matches were played in Athens.
The Gators enjoyed one of their strongest fall seasons in years, highlighted by three appearances in finals of the two collegiate grand slam events, with Allie Will winning the Riviera/ITA All American Singles Championship. Joanna Mather reached the singles final of the USTA-ITA National Indoor Championships, while Sofie Oyen and Will played for the Riviera/ITA All American Doubles Championship and Mather and Lauren Embree won the consolation doubles crown at the Riviera/ITA All American Championships.
Florida concluded its 2010-11 home schedule with a 13-0 record and extended its overall program-record home winning streak to 95, which includes 17 wins in postseason play (SEC and NCAA Tournament). The Gators set a new standard with their 6-1 victory over Mississippi State on March 29, 2009, passing the previous record of 60.
Florida capped its regular-season home slate having won 102 consecutive regular-season home matches - not including SEC Tournament or NCAA Championship events. The current streak is the longest of its kind in program history, passing the 71 in a row compiled from 1994-2001.
