Florida Gators
Illinois
No. 5 Men's Tennis Defeats No. 18 Illinois, 6-1
Sunday, February 12, 2012 | Men's Tennis
In front of a crowd of over 500 on Sunday, the fifth-ranked Florida men's tennis team defeated No. 18 Illinois, 6-1, at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex in Gainesville. After a tightly contested doubles point, the Gators won five of six singles matches, all in straight sets, to finish off the Fighting Illini.
With wins over Florida State and Illinois this weekend, Florida improved to 4-1 on the season before heading to the ITA National Indoors next weekend.
“We're really glad to get the win today against a very good Illinois team,” said head coach Andy Jackson. “We're excited about the direction that we're moving in and looking forward to playing Pepperdine at the Indoors next Friday.”
Early in the match, it appeared that the doubles point may be crucial with how close the action was on all three courts. At No. 2 doubles, Florida's Tripper Carleton (Naples, Fla.) and Spencer Newman (Miami, Fla.) broke Ross Guignon and Tim Kopinski to go up 7-5, and Carleton held serve for the 8-5 win.
At the top position, UF's Billy Federhofer (North Miami, Fla.) and Nassim Slilam (Paris, France) exchanged early breaks with Dennis Nevolo and Roy Kalmanovich, but ultimately fell 8-6.
The deciding match on court three was back and forth in the beginning, with Illinois' Bruno Adelnour and Stephen Hoh taking advantage of a break to go up 4-2 over Andrew Butz (Vero Beach, Fla.) and Bob van Overbeek (Boca Raton, Fla.). At that point, the Gator pair flipped a switch and reeled off six-straight games, including three breaks of serve, to win the match, 8-6, and clinch the doubles point for Florida.
The Gators momentum continued in singles after taking a 1-0 lead with the doubles point. Michael Alford (Tampa, Fla.) once again took care of business at the sixth position, beating Guignon 6-0, 6-4. Florent Diep (Paris, France) bounced back after dropping his match on Saturday against Florida State with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Adelnour at No. 4 singles. Finishing just seconds later, Newman clinched the team victory with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Kopinski on court five.
Carleton, who is undefeated in dual match play this season with a 5-0 record, beat Hoh 7-5, 6-3 at No. 3 singles.
Although the match was already decided, perhaps the highlight of the afternoon came at No. 1 singles. Going up against a top-five opponent in No. 2-ranked Nevolo, van Overbeek played outstanding. He pulled out a tiebreaker in the first set to gain the advantage, but fell behind 3-1 early in the second set.
Van Overbeek then broke Nevolo twice and held serve twice to take a 5-3 lead and things looked promising. Nevolo won his final service game, but van Overbeek followed with a big service game of his own to end the match, 7-6 (5), 6-4, earning his first-ever victory over a top-5 opponent.
“The thing that was most important was how [Bob] recovered his emotional stability in the doubles, which was the biggest point of the match,” said Coach Jackson. “We have confidence that Bob is among the best players in the country. He is a big kid, great serve, good competitor, lot of ability. He had his first huge win against a top five opponent today, but it's not a huge surprise and I don't think it will be the last. I am very excited for him. For our team, it was huge what he did for us in the doubles, he and Andrew Butz.”
Slilam dropped his match, 7-6 (2), 6-4, against No. 24 Kalmanovich on court two.
The Gators leave Thursday for the ITA National Indoor Tournament in Charlottesville, Va. Florida will face No. 12 Pepperdine in the Round of 16 on Friday at noon, with the winner advancing to face either No. 4 Georgia or No. 13 California. The complete draw and results throughout the tournament can be found online here: http://www.itatennis.com/
| 2012 University of Florida Men's Tennis | ||||||
| Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex | ||||||
| Gainesville, Florida | ||||||
| Sunday, February 12, 2012 | ||||||
| Doubles | FLORIDA | vs | Illinois | Winner |
| Score (match length) |
| Billy Federhofer (4) | Dennis Nevolo | |||||
| No. 1 - | Nassim Slilam (4) | Roy Kalmanovich | ILL | 8-6 (1:03) | ||
| Tripper Carleton (41) | Ross Guignon | |||||
| No. 2 - | Spencer Newman (41) | Tim Kopinski | UF | 8-5 (:50) | ||
| Andrew Butz (25) | Bruno Adelnour | |||||
| No. 3 - | Bob van Overbeek (25) | Stephen Hoh | UF* | 8-4 (1:07) | ||
| Singles | FLORIDA | vs | Illinois | Winner |
| Score (match length) |
| No. 1 - | Bob van Overbeek (69) | Dennis Nevolo (2) | UF | 7-6 (5), 6-4 (1:45) | ||
| No. 2 - | Nassim Slilam | Roy Kalmanovich (24) | ILL | 7-6 (2), 6-4 (2:02) | ||
| No. 3 - | Tripper Carleton | Stephen Hoh | UF | 7-5, 6-3 (1:29) | ||
| No. 4 - | Florent Diep | Bruno Adelnour | UF | 6-4, 6-2 (1:21) | ||
| No. 5 - | Spencer Newman (84) | Tim Kopinski | UF* | 6-1, 6-3 (1:21) | ||
| No. 6 - | Michael Alford | Ross Guignon | UF | 6-0, 6-4 (1:12) | ||
| FINAL SCORE: | Florida - 6 | Illinois - 1 | * Clinched victory | |||
| Records: | Florida (5-1) | Illinois (5-3) | ||||
| Order of Finish: | Doubles: 2, 1, 3 | Singles: 6, 4, 5, 3, 1, 2 | ||||
| Attendance: | 506 | |||||
