{"id":227099,"date":"2026-04-11T01:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227099\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:28:07","slug":"no-17-florida-secures-crucial-win-over-no-13-vanderbilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227099\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 17 Florida secures crucial win over No. 13 Vanderbilt"},"content":{"rendered":"

With early momentum from a 6-2 win over the No. 7 Vanderbilt doubles team in the nation, Valery Gynina seemed ready to defeat anyone.<\/p>\n

She began her singles match against No. 14 Celia-Bella Mohr down four games, but quickly readjusted and came back to win the set 7-5.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that at some point her serve would become weaker,\u201d Gynina said. \u201cThen I\u2019d get a chance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After that, the Florida junior dominated. Gynina clinched a comeback 7-5, 6-4 win to inch the Gators closer to the overall victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Behind her efforts, the No. 17 Florida Gators (13-6, 8-5 SEC) swept the No. 13 Vanderbilt Commodores 4-0 (19-6, 9-4 SEC) in Thursday’s matchup at home.<\/p>\n

Everything went right for the Gators in doubles, as they secured the first doubles point since their last on March 26 against then-No. 38 Alabama.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pair of junior Valery Gynina and freshman Brooke Black performed at their highest level yet against No. 10 Valeria Ray and Bridget Stammel. Defeating the Commodores 6-2, the Florida duo claimed its first victory against a ranked opponent in the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On court three, Lucie Pawlak and India Houghton were in the zone. The Gator duo dominated Erin Pearce and Mia Yamakita to secure a 6-3 win and snatch the doubles point for Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Singles play proved again that Florida can outperform higher-ranked teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrrobaly the best match we played all year,\u201d head coach Per Nilsson said. \u201cWe\u2019re pretty tough to beat at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

On court four, Florida’s Pawlak secured her second win of the day over Vanderbilt\u2019s Pearce, going 7-5, 6-3 against the Commodore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To seal the win for the Gators, No. 77 Houghton delivered a dominant 6-3, 6-4 performance against the No. 6 player in the nation, Vandy\u2019s senior Stammel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Florida graduate student continues to impress in singles play, bringing her record against top-20 opponents to 3-1 in the season.<\/p>\n

Up next, the Gators close out the regular season facing Missouri on Saturday. First serve is set for 1 p.m.<\/p>\n

Contact Sofia Alamo at salamo@alligator.org<\/a>. Follow her on X @alamosofiaa.<\/p>\n

\n The Independent Florida Alligator has been independent of the university since 1971, your donation today could help #SaveStudentNewsrooms. Please consider giving today.\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sofia Alamo<\/p>\n

Sofia Alamo is a Sports Journalism freshman at UF and the university\u2019s Women\u2019s Tennis beat reporter. Her favorite sports are soccer and tennis, and she aspires to be a sports broadcaster in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With early momentum from a 6-2 win over the No. 7 Vanderbilt doubles team in the nation, Valery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-227099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}