GAINESVILLE, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Florida Women’s Tennis Team locked up the six seed in the SEC Tournament Sunday afternoon with a 4-0 win over visiting Missouri (12-17, 0-15), and tied an SEC record in the process. The Gators’ 10 conference victories\u00a0this season are six more than they had a year ago, which matches\u00a0the SEC benchmark for year-to-year improvement. The Auburn Tigers improved by six wins in the 2002 and 2016 campaigns.<\/p>\n
As the six seed, Florida (15-6, 10-5) earns a single bye in the conference tournament which begins Wednesday, April 15 in Norman, Okla. The top four seeds receive double byes, while seeds five through eight receive a single bye. The Gators’ first postseason match is slated for Thursday, April 16 at 10 a.m. EDT against the winner of Wednesday’s 10 a.m.match between 11-seed South Carolina and 14-seed Arkansas.<\/p>\n
The 17th-ranked Gators are heading into the tournament with some much-needed momentum having swept each of their last two conference opponents including a 4-0 victory over No. 13 Vanderbilt on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
“We’re pretty close [to playing our best tennis of the regular season],” said Associate Head Coach Axel Damiens<\/a> following the match. “I don’t know if it is our best tennis. I’d like to think there’s many things we can still improve on, but we’re happy with where we are at this time of the year. We’re getting there.”<\/p>\n On Sunday, Lucie Pawlak<\/a>, who was celebrating her 20th birthday, and India Houghton<\/a>\u00a0bested Alex Ackman and Zoe Lazar at number three doubles to put the Gators up early. It also improved the duo’s record to 8-4 in the SEC, which is the best mark on the team. Missouri’s number two doubles team of Korina Roso and Andre Artimedi topped Brooke Black<\/a> and Valery Gynina<\/a> 6-2 to tie things up, however Xinyi Nong<\/a> and Nikola Daubnerova<\/a> quickly followed with a 6-2 win in the top slot to hand Florida the doubles point.<\/p>\n The Gators jumped out to early leads in four of six singles matches, and Pawlak put Florida up 2-0 with a decisive 6-1, 6-0 win at number four. That was the freshman’s 20th win of the season which is tops on the team. Meanwhile, Houghton continued her torrid play of late at number one, beating her second straight nationally-ranked opponent by posting a double bagel against No. 76 Gian Octa. Daubnerova closed out the match with a 6-1, 6-1 win at number six singles, sending the Florida faithful home happy for the final time during the regular season. However, it might not be the last home match for the Gators at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex as they are in line to potentially host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament later in April.<\/p>\n It was also the final regular season match in the careers of Nong and Houghton, who were honored during an on-court ceremony prior to the match. “They’ve meant a lot to this program,” said Damiens. “We had one player on the roster at one point [during the offseason] and to have two players decide to spend their last year in what they knew was going to be a rebuild, and going to take time … I’m just so appreciative that they trusted us and our vision, and have been such great role models for some of our younger players.”<\/p>\n FINAL RESULTS Order of Finish.\u00a0 \u00a04, 1, 6<\/p>\n Doubles Order of Finish\u00a0 \u00a0 3, 2, 1<\/p>\n FOLLOW THE GATORS
\nSingles
\n1\u00a0 #77\u00a0 India Houghton<\/a>\u00a0(UF)\u00a0def. #76 Gian Octo (MIZZ) 6-0, 6-0
\n2\u00a0 #67 Valery Gynina<\/a> (UF) unf. Korina Roso (MIZZ) 7-6 (9-7)
\n3\u00a0 #57 Gabia Paskauskas<\/a> (UF) unf. Andrea Artimedi (MIZZ) 6-2, 2-1
\n4\u00a0 Lucie Pawlak<\/a> (UF) def. Alex Ackman Pearce (MIZZ) 6-1, 6-0
\n5\u00a0 Xinyi Nong<\/a>\u00a0(UF)\u00a0unf. Zoe Lazar Webster (MIZZ) 6-3, 3-1
\n6\u00a0 #104\u00a0Nikola Daubnerova<\/a> (UF) def. Lara Quaglia (MIZZ) 6-1, 6-1<\/p>\n
\n1\u00a0 #19\u00a0Nong \/ Daubnerova (UF) def. Quaglia \/ Octa (MIZZ)\u00a0 6-2
\n2\u00a0 Roso \/ Artimedi (MIZZ) def. Gynina \/ Black (UF)\u00a0 6-2
\n3\u00a0 Houghton \/ Pawlak (UF) def. Ackman\u00a0\/ Lazar (MIZZ)\u00a0 6-1<\/p>\n
\nSOCIAL: X | Facebook | Instagram
\nJOIN THE CONVERSATION: #GoGators
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAINESVILLE, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Florida Women’s Tennis Team locked up the six seed in the SEC Tournament Sunday afternoon with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-603120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}