{"id":229487,"date":"2026-04-13T09:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T09:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229487\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T09:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T09:08:27","slug":"no-17-gators-close-out-regular-season-with-sweep-over-missouri-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229487\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 17 Gators close out regular season with sweep over Missouri"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebratory cheers echoed at the Alfred A. Ring tennis complex on Saturday afternoon as the Florida women\u2019s tennis team honored its senior players. Greeted with flowers and a picture frame, Xinyi Nong and India Houghton were the focus of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a really great choice coming to Florida,\u201d Nong said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The seniors took that motivation to the court, each playing at their strongest form.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Behind the senior-driven energy, the No. 17 Florida Gators (14-6, 9-5 SEC) defeated the Missouri Tigers (12-16, 0-14 SEC) 4-0 on Saturday afternoon at the Alfred A. Ring tennis complex.<\/p>\n

In doubles, the Gators looked strong with decisive wins over the Tigers.<\/p>\n

Lucie Pawlak and Houghton made a clinic out of Missouri’s Alex Ackman and Zoe Lazar. Playing for the match point, senior Houghton hit a decisive slice to take the victory. The Florida duo defeated the Tigers, 6-1.<\/p>\n

However, Valery Gynina and Brooke Black had a tough time keeping up with Korina Roso and Andrea Artimedi. Struggling with unforced errors, the Gators fell 6-2 to the Tigers.<\/p>\n

To give Florida the advantage again, Nong and Nikola Daubnerova delivered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They found success against Lara Quaglia and Gian Octa, handing them several overhead smashes. The Florida duo finished the Missouri tandem in a clean 6-2.<\/p>\n

The Gators continued to play in dominant fashion in singles.<\/p>\n

On court four, Pawlak was the first to finish, claiming a shutout 6-1, 6-0 victory over Ackman. Celebrating her 20th birthday today, the Florida freshman said she refused to lose on her special day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Houghton followed, handing Missouri\u2019s Octa a double bagel, claiming an impressive 6-0, 6-0 result on her senior day.<\/p>\n

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To clinch the overall victory for the Gators, sophomore Daubnerova went 6-1, 6-1 against Quaglia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s many things we can improve on,\u201d said associate head coach Axel Damiens. \u201cBut I think we’re pretty close to playing our best tennis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The match against Missouri was the last game of the regular season for the Gators. Carrying a 14-6 overall record, Florida looks competitive ahead of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Next up, No. 6 Florida gets back on the court on Thursday at 9 a.m. The Gators look to SEC Tournament play and face the winner of No. 14 Arkansas and No. 11 South Carolina, who play Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Norman, Oklahoma.<\/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":"Celebratory cheers echoed at the Alfred A. Ring tennis complex on Saturday afternoon as the Florida women\u2019s tennis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-229487","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\/229487","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=229487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}