A tight first two sets brought junior Belinda Woolcock’s and Shannon Hudson’s match to the third set.
With a Woolcock win, the Gators would get the sweep.
And in the third set, Woolcock closed out the match, earning a 1-0 win.
After falling 4-3 to both California and Stanford in its road trip last weekend, No. 15 Florida (6-2) opened up Southeastern Conference play Thursday with a 7-0 win against Arkansas at the Ring Tennis Complex.
“I thought we played really well,” coach Roland Thornqvist said in a release. “I was curious to see how we were going to react off of the two-match losing streak we were on.”
For the eighth time this season, the Gators took the doubles point.
The No. 7 duo of sophomore Brooke Austin and junior Kourtney Keegan defeated Arkansas’ Makenzie Craft and Flavia Araujo 6-2.
Sophomore Anna Danilina and senior Brianna Morgan took home the point with a victory over Yuliya Lysa and Shannon Hudson.
No. 12 Austin started off singles play with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Ana Oparenovic, giving Florida a 2-0 lead.
No. 67 Danilina finished soon after, defeating Sasha Shkorupeieva 6-4, 6-0.
A pair of wins from junior Spencer Liang and Morgan solidified the win for the Gators.
Liang clinched the victory for Florida with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Mia Jurasic, while No. 88 Morgan defeated Craft 6-1, 6-3 to give the Gators a 5-0 lead.
The final two matches were closer.
Keegan won the first set of her match against Lysa 6-2. Both players put up a fight in the second set, but in the end Keegan emerged victorious with a 7-5 win.
Eventually, No. 6 Woolcock increased the Gators’ lead to 7-0 over Arkansas (6-5).
“That was impressive. Two great competitors were going at it at the end there,” Thornqvist said. “Hudson did not make any unforced errors and we had to really earn every point. There were times I thought at the end at the first sets and at spots in the second set where Belinda made some errors in clusters.
“But she cleaned up at the end of the second and in the super tiebreaker I thought she played really, really well.”
The Gators face Missouri on Saturday at the Ring Tennis Complex at 11 a.m.
Contact Jake Dreilinger at jdreilinger@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @DreilingerJake.
UF's Belinda Woolcock returns the ball with a forehand during Florida's 6-1 win over USF on Jan. 21, 2016, at the Ring Tennis Complex.
