No. 16 Gators Men’s Tennis Falls to No. 22 South Carolina
The No. 16 Florida Gators men’s tennis team fell to the No. 22 South Carolina Gamecocks at home Sunday. The Gators (7-6, 1-3 SEC) never led the match against the Gamecocks (10-1, 3-0 SEC) as they lost the doubles point early and couldn’t answer back in singles.
“It’s tough in the SEC to lose the doubles and then win four singles matches,” said Florida coach Adam Steinberg.
The Gamecocks struck first by taking the doubles point. The Gators’ court one duo of Henry Jefferson and Lorenzo Claverie struggled, quickly losing their set 6-2. The duels on the other two courts were evenly matched.
Unfortunately for the Gators, the Gamecocks took the next set. After splitting the first eight games, the Gators’ court three pairing of Andreas Timini and Kevin Edengren lost their next two, sealing a 6-4 defeat.
“We have to find a way to consistently win the doubles point,” Steinberg said. “I think it would change everything.”
The first set of singles started out well for the Gators. Pablo Perez Ramos made quick work of Sean Daryabeigi, taking the set 6-3. The Gamecocks quickly countered.
Jefferson struggled against Lucas Andrade da Silva, losing the set 6-3.
Tanapatt Nirundorn and Claverie were the next two Gators to finish their first set. Nirundorn took a 6-4 victory in a back-and-forth affair. Claverie played in a similarly even match, but wasn’t able to emerge victorious, as he took a 6-4 defeat.
The remaining two sets went to a tiebreaker. Florida’s Jeremy Jin struggled to start the tiebreaker, but rebounded to make it a 6-5 score. Unfortunately for Jin, he couldn’t secure the final point, as Atakan Karahan took a 7-6 victory in set one.
On the other hand Kevin Edengren was able to lock down the set, taking care of business against Charlie Swaine in the tiebreaker.
The Gators were the first to grab a singles point, as Nirundorn closed out his match against Gabe Avram with a 6-3 win in their second set.
Lorenzo Claverie essentially repeated his first set. His second set was hard fought, but he was ultimately unable to come out on top in another 6-4 defeat.
This was quickly followed up by da Silva taking down Jefferson in a 6-4 win.
This got the Gamecocks up to three points, meaning that they only needed to win one of the remaining three matches to take home the victory.
Daryabegi responded in kind to Perez Ramos’ beatdown in set one, as the Gamecock took him down 6-2 in the second set.
That last point wouldn’t come against Edengren, as he finished the sweep of Swaine with a 6-3 second set victory.
It was Jin who surrendered the final point to the Gamecocks. After winning the first four games of his second set, he fell apart.
Jin lost the next six in a row to Karahan, whose teammates ran over to him to celebrate after scoring the final point.
“He lost confidence,” Steinberg said. “He hasn’t played much. There’s a belief factor there and that’s hard when you haven’t played for a long time.”
Even after the result had been decided, Perez Ramos and Daryabeigi played out the rest of their match. In contrast to their previous two lopsided sets, their third was dead even.
The pair split the first eight games of the set, but Daryabeigi took the last two in a row to add the cherry on top for the Gamecocks.
“We were inconsistent with our serving and returning and that makes it hard,” Steinberg said
The Gators stay at home for their next match against the No. 14 Texas A&M Aggies Friday at 5 p.m.
Category: Gators Tennis
