UF's Aiden Kim serves the ball during his doubles match Friday against North Florida at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex. [Valentina Sarmiento/WRUF]

Florida Men’s Tennis Remains Undefeated At Home

The Gators men’s tennis team remains undefeated at home after a 6-1 victory Monday against the UCF Knights.

Florida broke a four-match losing streak to improve to 4-4. It was the Knights’ first loss of the season after a 7-0 start.

Doubles

The Knights earned the first win on Court 3 when Francisco Llanes-Santiago Giamichelle defeated Jeremy Jin-Henry Jefferson 6-4. On Court 1, Florida’s Nate Bonetto-Aidan Kim beat UCF’s Yassine Dlimi-Mehdi Benchakroun 6-4.

Adhithya Ganesan-Tanapatt Nirundorn won the doubles point for the Gators. They beat Liam Branger-Lleyton Cronje 7-5 giving Florida the one-point lead. The Gator duo improved to 6-1 this season with one match going unfinished.

Singles

Bonetto ended his day quickly when he gave the Gators their second point by beating Giamichelle 6-1, 6-4 on Court 4. Bonetto is 5-1 in singles competition with one of his matches going unfinished.

Florida went up 3-0 when Nirundorn took out Benchakroun 6-3, 6-3 on Court 5. The win allowed him to improve to 3-3 in singles competition with one unfinished match.

The Gators won the match after Kim got the fourth point by beating Llanes 7-5, 6-2. This was Kim’s first match this season playing on Court 3. It’s been a month since his last singles win during the doubleheader season opener against The Citadel and North Florida. Although Florida got the win after starting 4-0, the teams played out the final matches.

On Court 2, Jin beat Cronje 7-6, 6-3 to put Florida up 5-0. Jin is now 4-1 this season with three unfinished matches. He remains undefeated on Court 2.

Dlimi prevented the sweep, beating Ganesan 6-2, 5-7, 11-9 on Court 1. This is Ganesan’s third straight loss since starting the season 5-0. Dlimi has not been beaten in his last five matches.

To close out the match, Jefferson beat Branger 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 giving the Gators the 6-1 win. This was Jefferson’s second singles match of the season after winning in the team’s first matchup of the year.

Up Next

Florida is now headed into conference play with its next match against the No. 12 Texas A&M Aggies on March 1 at 5 p.m. at home in the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.

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