Spencer Newman fought hard to help keep his team alive in doubles, but he couldn’t escape a match-changing ankle roll in singles that led to the Gators losing for the first time this season.
On the first day of the Pac-12/Southeastern Conference Showdown, coach Bryan Shelton and his Florida squad fell 4-1 to UCLA.
The match began with a struggle on the doubles court. Florida’s Maxx Lipman and Gordon Watson were defeated by the Bruins’ duo of Joseph DiGiulio and Clay Thompson. The remaining Gator tandems found momentum and won their matches to give Florida the doubles point.
Newman teamed up with sophomore Diego Hidalgo to earn a 6-3 victory. Stephane Piro and Mike Alford pulled out the tiebreaker 10-8 to seal it.
“We came out and were resilient in the doubles,” Shelton said. “Mike and Steph did a nice job staying poised when they missed some early opportunities. In the end they got it done.”
On the singles court, Newman retired due to a rolled ankle. His retiring tied the score 1-1. Elliot Orkin also struggled in singles, He loss in straight sets, which led to a 2-1 UCLA lead.
“We lost some momentum when Spencer rolled his ankle and UCLA was very tough in the singles,” Shelton said.
UCLA’s momentum continued throughout singles play resulting in a 4-1 win. On Sunday, the Gators look to redeem themselves against the host team USC. Shelton and his team don’t want to return to Gainesville with two matches in the loss column.
“We'll regroup and be ready to battle again tomorrow against USC,” he said.
Follow Britnee McCoy on Twitter @TheReporterGirl
