Florida Gators
#7 Georgia
No. 17 Florida Drops Conference Opener to No. 7 Georgia, 4-1
Friday, February 27, 2015 | Men's Tennis
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Sophomore Elliott Orkin put Florida on the board with a singles victory, but the No. 17 Florida Gators fell to the No. 7 Georgia Bulldogs, 4-1, in their Southeastern Conference opener Thursday evening at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.
Florida started singles at a disadvantage after a tough battle in doubles. No. 2 duo Orkin and Maxx Lipman earned a 6-1 victory over Eric Diaz and Nathan Pasha to kick off the event, but Oliver Landert and Richard Brej dropped a 6-1 decision on Court 3 to give the Gators and the Bulldogs one doubles win apiece. No. 47 Diego Hidalgo and Gordon Watson held a 4-2 lead on Court 1, but No. 10-ranked Georgia duo Austin Smith and Ben Wagland rallied back to a 7-6 (7) win to clinch the doubles point.
In singles, Georgia earned straight-set victories on Courts 2 and 6 to jump out to a 3-0 lead, but Orkin's win kept Florida in the match. Watson forced No. 16-ranked Nathan Pasha into three sets, but fell in the third, 6-0, and allowed Pasha to clinch the win for the Bulldogs.
The Gators have a quick turnaround, as they host No. 34 South Carolina on Saturday, Feb. 28 at 1 p.m. at the Ring Tennis Complex.
| 2015 University of Florida Men's Tennis | ||||||
| Scott Linder Stadium at Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex | ||||||
| Gainesville, Florida | ||||||
| Thursday, February 26, 2015 | ||||||
| Doubles | FLORIDA | vs | GEORGIA | Winner |
| Score/match length |
| Diego Hidalgo (47) | Austin Smith (10) | |||||
| No. 1 - | Gordon Watson (47) | Ben Wagland (10) | UGA* | 7-6 (7) (:57) | ||
| Maxx Lipman | Eric Diaz | |||||
| No. 2 - | Elliott Orkin | Nathan Pasha | UF | 6-1 (:23) | ||
| Richard Brej | Wayne Montgomery | |||||
| No. 3 - | Oliver Landert | Paul Oosterbaan | UGA | 6-1 (:25) | ||
| Singles | FLORIDA | vs | GEORGIA | Winner |
| Score/match length |
| No. 1 - | Diego Hidalgo (46) | Wayne Montgomery (17) | DNF | 3-6, 6-3, 1-1, DNF | ||
| No. 2 - | Maxx Lipman (103) | Austin Smith (25) | UGA | 6-1, 6-4 (1:05) | ||
| No. 3 - | Gordon Watson | Nathan Pasha (16) | UGA* | 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 (1:40) | ||
| No. 4 - | Elliott Orkin (80) | Nick Wood | UF | 7-5, 6-2 (1:24) | ||
| No. 5 - | Chase Perez-Blanco (123) | Ben Wagland | DNF | 3-6, 7-6 (0), DNF | ||
| No. 6 - | Oliver Landert | Paul Oosterbaan | UGA | 6-4, 6-4 (1:20) | ||
| FINAL SCORE: | Florida – 1 | Georgia – 4 | * Clinched victory | |||
| Records: | Florida 5-3 | Georgia 8-2 | ||||
| Order of Finish: | Doubles: 2, 3, 1* | Singles: 2, 6, 4, 3* | ||||
| Attendance: 305 | ||||||
Quotes from the Match
Shelton's Notes – Head Coach Bryan Shelton
On falling to Georgia in conference opener…
I thought there were certainly some positives and some things we'd like to probably have a do-over on. But overall I thought we came out with good energy in the doubles. Obviously, No. 2 doubles gave us a lift again and came out and jumped on them quickly, I think they went up 5-0 and were able to win it 6-1, so that gave us a lift. And we certainly had our opportunities at No. 1 doubles and Gordon [Watson] and Diego [Hidalgo] I thought played really well. We just had a little bit of a tough time serving at the end of that doubles. I think we lost serve three times in a row. But I give our guys a lot of credit. They hung in there. We're down, they were serving 5-4, I think they served again at 6-5, and we broke both times to come back to then get up in the tiebreaker and have match point. It was a tough one to lose but I give Georgia credit. They hung in there too. Overall, I thought we came ready to play today. Maybe the doubles took a little bit of wind out of our sails. We got out to a slow start in singles. [Georgia] got up on every single court early. You looked up and down the scoreboard and Georgia was leading on all the courts, so now we've really got our backs against the wall. I think that was a tough place to play from at home. We'd like to be the ones applying the pressure and they put the pressure on us tonight. Something we can learn from in the future is that we've got to come ready to go. Win or lose that doubles point, we've got to get off to a better start in singles.
On the key to getting out to a faster start in singles against South Carolina…
In this league, like I said, every match is a tough match. For us, it's just learning from this. I think losing motivates you. If it doesn't, you're at the wrong place. Here at Florida, we have a high standard. It's a standard of excellence. So for us, I think losing this match tonight will certainly motivate our guys to get it right on Saturday. So we'll just go out there and control the things that we can control. You can't control everything. Sometimes you can do everything right and the other guy just plays better than you did. And in some cases, Georgia did that tonight. But there's certain things we can do better so we'll make sure that mentally we're where we need to be to get a better start come Saturday.
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