TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The No. 3 University of Florida women's tennis team defeated in-state rival, Florida State, 6-1 on Thursday afternoon in Tallahassee.
The Gators once again grabbed the doubles point on Thursday led by two comeback efforts from the No. 1 and No. 3 positions. No. 5-ranked
Brooke Austin and
Kourtney Keegan found themselves down 2-0 in their match against Borthwick and Castaneda. The tandem got on the board and won three straight games. FSU would take the match to a 3-3 tie, only to see the Gators win the next three games and the match.
An even larger deficit was overcome by the No. 50-ranked duo of
Anna Danilina and
Brianna Morgan. The pair was down 4-0 in their match, but made a furious comeback effort to take the match and the doubles point, 6-4.
Singles action saw five singles victories for Florida. In her second singles dual match of the season, sophomore Danilina made quick work of Rush, 6-2, 6-3. No. 3-ranked
Josie Kuhlman defeated Castaneda, 6-3, 6-2 and senior Morgan would grab her first dual match singles win of the season and clinch the match for the Gators with a 6-3, 6-1 victory.
In the conclusion of singles play, a tie-breaker was needed in the first set on the first line between Austin and Borthwick, 7-6, but took the second set, 6-1. Junior Keegan was another comeback kid on Thursday. After dropping her first set 6-2, the Gator took the second, 6-4 and won the third set tie breaker, 1-0 (10-4). Junior
Spencer Liang fell in the final match of the night. Having dropped the first set 6-4, the Potomac, Md. native brought the match to a tie with a 6-2 second set victory.
In the third, Liang would fall to Rahmanparast with a 13-11 tie break loss.
Florida returns home this weekend for a big Top-5 matchup between the Gators and the No. 4 USC Trojans. First serve is slated for 11 a.m. on Sunday morning.
Coach Thornqvist's ThoughtsOn the match victory over Florida State… "I thought we started off a little bit on the nervous side in doubles and that can actually be catastrophic with the new format and much shorter doubles play. In the middle of the doubles, we started to hit our stride. We played some really clean games to earn the doubles point.
We had some really good battles in singles and I was curious to see how a couple of our players, who lost their matches here last year, would want to handle themselves today. I was happy to see two of them were some of the first ones off the court. Overall, I was very pleased and this was exactly what we wanted before Southern California and one more match under our belt. I thought we played better as the match went on today. I was very pleased against a feisty Florida State team."
Final Results #3 Florida 6, #35 Florida State 1 Doubles-1, 3 #5
Brooke Austin/
Kourtney Keegan (UF) def. Daneika Borthwick/Gabriella Castaneda (FSU) 6-3
#15
Josie Kuhlman/
Belinda Woolcock (UF) vs. Julia Mikulsku/Yukako Noi (FSU) 5-4, susp.
#50
Anna Danilina/
Brianna Morgan (UF) def. Ariana Rahmanparast /Lana Rush (FSU) 6-4*
Singles-5, 2, 4*, 1, 3, 6 #11
Brooke Austin (UF) def. Daneika Borthwick (FSU) 7-6, 6-1
#56
Josie Kuhlman (UF) def. Gabriella Castaneda (FSU) 6-3, 6-2
#25
Kourtney Keegan (UF) def. Yukako Noi (FSU) 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-4)
#51
Brianna Morgan (UF) def. Julia Mikulski (FSU) 6-3, 6-1
#110
Anna Danilina (UF) def. Lana Rush (FSU) 6-2, 6-3
Ariana Rahmanparast (FSU) def. #73
Spencer Liang (UF) 4-6, 6-2, 1-0 (13-11)
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