The Gators opened up play at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, Okla. on Saturday, finishing the day with two wins and two losses.
Freshman Andrew Butz, who had a first-round bye, defeated TCU’s Zack Nichols in the second round of pre-qualifying in three sets (4-6, 6-2, 6-4) to advance to the third round on Sunday.
Butz will face Dean O’Brien of Georgia Tech, and needs two victories to advance to the qualifying round, which begins Monday.
Fellow freshman Michael Alford defeated Southern Methodist’s Mason Harell in the first round (6-1, 6-3), but fell to Nebraska’s Benedikt Lindheim in the second round (6-2, 6-1).
Sophomore Billy Federhofer lost in three sets in the first round to Texas Tech’s Vitor Manzini (6-4, 0-6, 6-2).
Near-Perfect First Day: Coach Roland Thornqvist’s team finished the first day of ITA All-American action in Pacific Palisades, Calif., with a near flawless performance, going a combined 7-1 in singles and doubles action.
Joanna Mather, the team’s most experienced player, easily defeated Utah’s Evgenia Kryuchkova in round one of pre-qualifying action (6-4, 6-0).
In the second round, the junior battled back after losing the first set to defeat Whitney Wolf of LSU (2-6, 6-0, 6-2).
The team also had encouraging performances from two of its freshmen.
Alexandra Cercone defeated Harvard’s Hideko Tachibana in round one (6-4, 7-6(2)), and followed up with a win against Heather Steinbauer of Southern Methodist (7-5, 6-2).
Sofie Oyen also had a strong day, as she defeated Louisiana Monroe’s Claire Clark in round one (6-0, 6-3) and Harvard’s Kristin Norton in round two (6-3, 6-4).
The team’s only loss in singles action came when Claire Bartlett fell to Ana Belzunce of Maryland in round one.
In pre-qualifying doubles, the team of Cercone and Caroline Hitimana defeated UCLA’s duo of Maya Johansson and Carling Seguso (9-7), and will take on Tulane’s Emma Levy and Mariam Kurdadze on Sunday.
