The ITA All-American Championships has been a series of ups and downs for the men’s tennis team.
Doubles duo Maxx Lipman and Elliott Orkin performed well in the qualifying rounds.
The pair won 6-3, 7-5 against Middle Tennessee State’s Gian Issa and Miguel Negre Fernandez, and defeated Ron Bellamy and Jack Jaede from USC in the Round of 32, 4-6, 6-4, 1-0 (5).
They then faced Yuya Ito and Harrison Scott of Texas in the Round of 16 Tuesday and won 6-3, 6-2.
Meanwhile, junior Chase Perez-Blanco failed to make it out past the first round of qualifying. He lost to Dennis Uspensky from Wake Forest, 6-3, 7-6 (5).
Florida women’s tennis players Anna Danilina and Spencer Liang also saw early success in the doubles qualifying rounds of the ITA Championships.
The duo defeated Gabriela Porubin and Giulia Guidetti 8-3 on Tuesday. Danilina and Liang will face Mississippi State’s Jasmine Lee and Lisa Marie Rioux, who are coming off an 8-4 win against the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, in the next round.
Danilina won two-straight matches on Tuesday to reach the final qualifying match that puts her in the main draw this Friday.
The junior from Moscow, Russia, won 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in her first match win against Texas Tech’s Sarah Dvorak. In the second round match, she won the first set 6-1, and was up 1-0 in the second set before her opponent ended the match due to injury. Danilina will face Stanford Cardinal Caroline Doyle tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, both Liang and Josie Kuhlman lost in the first round of singles competition.
Contact Cassie Amundson at camundson@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @camundson_.
Maxx Lipman returns a serve during Florida's 6-1 win over Troy on Jan. 17, 2016, at the Ring Tennis Complex.
