Far away from the friendly confines of Linder Stadium, the No. 8 Florida men’s tennis team opened its dual match season on Sunday in Waco, Texas, with a convincing 6-1 win over No. 5 Baylor.
Following up on last year’s victory against the Bears (1-1), the Gators (1-0) put on a similarly impressive performance, taking the doubles point and winning five of the six singles points.
To open the afternoon, all three of Florida’s doubles teams defeated their opponents. The No. 4 team of Nassim Slilam and Billy Federhofer defeated Marko Krickovic and Robert Verzaal 8-5. The doubles teams of No. 41 Spencer Newman and Frank Carleton and No. 25 Bob van Overbeek also won their matches by scores of 8-6 and 8-5, respectively.
Junior Billy Federhofer turned in the most dominant singles performance of the afternoon, dismantling Baylor’s Kike Grangeiro 6-0, 6-1.
Federhofer’s doubles partner Nassim Slilam also won his match, taking both highly-contested sets with Diego Galeano, 6-3, 7-5.
The lone blemish for Florida occurred when Bob van Overbeek dropped his singles match to No. 20 Mate Zsiga 6-4, 6-2. The Hungarian-born Zsiga was dominant in his win over the Gators’ junior, who came into the match ranked 69th in the nation. That loss brought the score to 2-1 in Florida’s favor.
It was Florent Diep, a French sophomore, who clinched the match for the Gators. His 7-5, 7-5 victory over the Bears’ Marko Krickovic made it 4-1 Florida.
Frank Carleton, a junior transfer from Wake Forest, overcame a poor first set by defeating Baylor’s No. 54 Roberto Maytin 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
The afternoon concluded with No. 84 Spencer Newman defeating Baylor freshman No. 52 Lars Behlen 6-1, 6-7 (3), 1-0 (10-7). That clinched the 6-1 victory for the Gators.
