The Florida men’s tennis team had mixed results in its final home weekend of the regular season.
After topping No. 25 LSU 4-2 on Friday, the No. 16 Gators fell flat on Sunday, losing their home finale against No. 8 Texas A&M 4-0 at the Ring Tennis Complex.
Florida did one thing in Friday’s match against LSU that they failed to do on Sunday against the Aggies: get ahead.
UF brought in the doubles point against the Tigers to give the Gators the 1-0 lead before getting wins from Chase Perez-Blanco, Gordon Watson and Elliott Orkin in singles play.
Although Florida won its match on Friday, coach Bryan Shelton said there were still improvements to be made.
"It’s easy to start watching the scoreboards and seeing how their teammates are doing while they’re trying to play," Shelton said. "It’s not easy because they care about the team and they want the team to do well and they care about one another, so I kind of understand it, but at the same time they need to focus in on their court."
And when the Gators looked at the scoreboards on Sunday, they were behind.
Texas A&M (17-3, 10-1 Southeastern Conference) took the doubles point in just 40 minutes, winning 6-0 on the No. 3 Court and 6-4 on Court 1.
All six singles matches were forced into a third-set.
However, the Gators (11-7, 6-4 SEC) found themselves playing catch up after falling behind in four of six first sets.
After coaching how important winning the doubles point is, Florida dropped its ninth doubles point of the season.
"Texas A&M came in and played a really good match from start to finish," Shelton said. "In doubles they came out ready to play and we just started too slow out there and put ourselves in a hole, losing our serve in two first service games on Court 1 and also on Court 3."
Although Florida may have started off the match on the back burner, Shelton said he isn’t disappointed in the fight he witnessed the rest of the match.
"I felt like up and down the board we competed well, played well, put ourselves in good positions in sets, and it was a tight match," Shelton said. "It’s one of those where [if] we get one of our two points, we can pick those two points somewhere, I think we win a few more of those matches and we’re still out there playing right now."
Follow Caylee Underwood on Twitter @CayUnderwood
Gordon Watson dives for a missed return during Florida's win against LSU on Friday.
