NASHVILLE, Tenn. – In one of the tightest battles of the season, No. 12 Florida denied the 20th-ranked Vanderbilt men’s tennis team a comeback victory, defeating the Commodores 4-3 Sunday afternoon.
“I give credit to the fight in both teams. Florida has one loss and we have one loss. I feel really good about our team,” said head coach Ian Duvenhage. “We emphasize to the team that to win this type of match we need three doubles teams to show up ready to play and six singles players to show up and be in the right frame of mind mentally and emotionally to do their best.
“That’s something that isn’t talked about much, but one of the toughest things as a coach is trying to help people get to the right place mentally and emotionally. Sometimes players can only do that for themselves, and that’s the difference between good teams and great teams. We’ve still got plenty of time to see if we will become a great team.”
Sunday’s match began with the odds stacked against the Dores as Florida fielded three top-15 doubles duos. No. 10 Oliver Crawford and Chase Perez Blanco earned the first victory on the day, handing the senior tandem of Daniel Valent and Baker Newman a 6-0 loss.
Vandy’s No. 75 Lachlan McPhee and Panu Virtanen put up a fight on court two, but the Gators’ No. 12 Duarte Vale and McClain Kessler sealed the doubles point, 7-5. No. 57 Cameron Klinger and Billy Rowe trailed the No. 1 doubles duo in the country, Johannes Ingildsen and Alfredo Perez, 5-6 at the clinch.
“We didn’t play very well in doubles, and they played extremely well at three doubles to put us in the position to have to win both of the remaining matches,” Duvenhage said. “But we’ve been in that situation a number of times this year. So we didn’t have the greatest start, but the kids still hung in there.”
Florida came out swinging in singles play, taking four-of-six first sets. The Commodores, however, had no intention of going down quietly, sending one match to a second-set tiebreaker and two matches to third sets.
UF extended their lead to 2-0 on court one, as No. 7 Perez took the first set over No. 57 Klinger, 6-4, then completed the victory swiftly in the second set, 6-0.
The Dores earned their first point of the outing on court five, thanks to freshman Maxwell Freeman. The Ashland, Mass. native took a straight-set victory of his own, defeating fellow freshman Andy Andrade 6-3, 6-4.
Florida fought back to take the 3-1 lead with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over George Harwell on court six.
VU secured victories on courts two then four to mount a comeback, leveling the match at 3-all. No. 79 Valent earned his highest ranked victory of the year, downing No. 6 Ingildsen in the first set, 6-3, and taking a competitive second set tiebreaker, 7-6(4). The victory was Valent’s fourth top-25 victory of his senior season.
After falling in a 2-6, 2-5 hole, Rowe climbed back into Sunday’s competition on court four to take five games in a row and force a third set against No. 68 Vale, 7-5. Both underclassmen battled toe-to-toe throughout the third and final set, with Rowe edging out the Gator in the final points of the match, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.
With the match tied, all eyes turned to court three as Newman faced off against No. 93 Crawford. After suffering a 6-4 first set loss and with his back against the wall, the Commodore from Miami pulled off the second set, 6-4. With Newman leading 4-2, his opponent began slowly chipping away at the lead to level the third set to 4-all. Crawford took the final two points of the match for the 4-3 Florida victory, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
“Billy Rowe earns the game ball for today,” said Duvenhage. “Danny (Valent) did a great job of finding a way to win his match, as did Max (Freeman). Baker Newman was up 4-3, 40-30, on his own serve. But we all felt that Crawford just stepped it up and played so well at the end there. I told Baker that he didn’t lose that match, the other guy just won it, and there’s no shame in that. Ninety percent of what happened today was really positive. The dream is still alive, we’ve just got to get back to work and get ready for next weekend.”
With the loss, the Commodores suffered their first home and Southeastern Conference defeat of the year. VU (14-2, 4-1) hits the road next weekend, traveling to Mississippi State and Auburn.
