Florida Men’s Tennis falls short on Senior Day, Women Lose Too

The last regular season home match for the Florida men’s tennis team ends in a deceiving 4-0 loss to Texas A&M. N0. 16 Florida put up a hard fight against the eighth ranked Aggies, something that doesn’t quite come through in the

score. The Gators started slow in doubles play, dropping that point for the second time in the last three matches. The team of Diego Hidalgo and Gordon Watson battled on Court 1 after trailing 5-2. Maxx Lipman and Elliott Orkin led 6-2 on Court 2 before the No. 13 ranked Texas A&M duo of Harrison Adams and Shane Vinsant fought back, taking the doubles point for the Aggies. “Texas A&M came in and played a really good match from start to finish.” Florida head coach Bryan Shelton says, “In the doubles they came out ready to play, and we just started too slow out there and put ourselves in a hole.” In the singles matches Florida fell behind in four of the six first sets, with every match fighting to a third set. Playing catch-up, the Gators took the second set on four courts, but Texas A&M stepped up even more and swept the bottom half of the line-up. “I felt like we moved extremely well on the court. I could see that they had good energy in the singles and were strong all the way through to the end of the match.” Shelton said. “On so many matches it felt like when we got deep in the rallies we got stronger and stronger and stronger, from the top of the line-up all the way down to court number six.” The Gators will be on the road to finish up the regular season. First, on Friday, Florida will be on the court with Kentucky and then UF will face Tennessee on Sunday. The Florida women’s team also lost to an SEC rival, falling to Vanderbilt 4-1. Listen here for more from head coach Bryan Shelton: Shelton talks about doubles play Shelton talks about strength in singles play Shelton talks more about strenth in singles play