UF's Henry Jefferson hits the ball during the UF vs. FGCU match at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex in Gainesville, Fla., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. — Florida lost to both Florida State and UCF, the two most-recent ranked opponents its faced. (Ashleigh Lucas/WRUF)

Florida Men’s Tennis Set to Open ITA Event in Dallas

Florida men’s tennis is set to open the ITA Men’s National Team Indoor Championship against the No. 6 Mississippi State Bulldogs Friday night. After the tournament, the Gators launch into SEC play.

The Gators bounced back against FGCU last week, beating the Eagles in a sweep — but they haven’t looked or played their best against other ranked opponents this season.

The good news for Florida is that one of the thorns in its side — Florida State — won’t be competing against this weekend.

Unfortunately for the Gators, their opponents aren’t pushovers, either. Far from it, actually.

Mississippi State is the No. 3 seed in the ITA event. On top of that, it’s No. 6 in the ITA’s national rankings, making it the highest-ranked team Florida’s faced so far. The Bulldogs are still undefeated as well, and it already holds a win against No. 24 Illinois.

As if things couldn’t look worse for the Gators, Mississippi State also has four players ranked in singles — No. No. 6 Petar Jovanovic, No. 33 Mario Martinez Sarrano, No. 45 Benito Sanchez Martinez and No. 68 Bryan Hernandez Cortes — and one ranked doubles pair: No. 6 Benito Sanchez Martinez and Petar Jovanovic.

Florida, similarly, has four players ranked in singles — No. 32 Pablo Perez Ramos, No. 43 Jeremy Jin, No. 50 Henry Jefferson and No. 54 Adhithya Ganesan. It also has a ranked doubles pair, No. 10 Henry Jefferson and Tanapatt Nirundorn.

Now, it doesn’t take a genius to see that the Gators top players are much lower ranked than the Bulldogs. In fact, the Gators top-ranked player doesn’t even come close to the Bulldogs, after all they’re 26 rankings apart.

Yet it isn’t all doom and gloom for Florida. The Gators won the ITA Kickoff Weekend tournament against No. 23 Kentucky and No. 13 Columbia.

This weekend, the Gators’ other possible opponents, Clemson or Virginia, are ranked No. 16 and No. 1 by the ITA.

But the possibility of playing one of those two teams shouldn’t even be on Florida’s mind. First, it has to beat Mississippi State and prove why it belongs in this tournament, among this level of opponents. Florida is the lowest ranked team outside of unranked UC Santa Barbara. Other possible opponents include Arizona State, Ohio State, SMU and Stanford.

The matches will take place at the SMU host site in Dallas and all teams are guaranteed to play a minimum of three matches during the first three days of the tournament, with consolation matches on Saturday and Sunday.

So the Gators start with Mississippi State. There’s no sugar coating to be done here, not with how the Gators have played this season. Their only hope is to play the best game of their season.

Category: Gator Sports, Gators Tennis, Tennis