Entering the season, expectations were high for the Florida women’s tennis team. It held the No. 1 ranking, it was the SEC coaches’ pick to win the conference and its head coach boasted that this was his most talented team in 16 years. But despite the pressure, the Gators are living up to the hype.
Winning their 1,000th match in program history, Florida dominated the ITA Kick-Off Tournament this weekend, defeating DePaul 6-1 on Saturday and FIU 4-0 on Sunday.
The Gators started quick on Saturday, taking 26 minutes to capture the doubles point. Josie Kuhlman and Belinda Woolcock defeated DePaul’s Marina Cozac and Patricia Lancranjan 6-0 while Anna Danilina and Ingrid Neel beat Yuliya Shupenia and Ana Vladutu 6-2 just five minutes later. Florida went on to capture all but one singles match to solidify its win.
On Sunday, the Gators had to fight early on as FIU came out strong.
“(FIU was) really feisty. They’re a really physical team,” coach Roland Thornqvist said. “That’s exactly what we needed. We needed to be tested. We needed to figure some stuff out deep in sets.”
UF did just that as Danilina and Neel won 6-2 over FIU’s Ulyana Grib and Maryna Veksler.
“We have gotten better every single time we step on the court,” Neel said of her doubles partner. “We’re more comfortable with each other and knowing each other’s tendencies. I’m really excited to see the partnership keep building. We’re just gonna go out there every time and take it to the opponents.”
Singles play was more stiff as every court but Kuhlman’s went to tiebreaker sets. Kuhlman dominated her match against Mina Markovic 6-0, 6-2 as Brooke Austin defeated Nina Nagode 7-6, 6-1 and Kourtney Keegan beat Grib 7-5, 6-1 to give the Gators the win.
Although Woolcock didn’t finish her match with FIU’s Andrea Lazaro, she feels this weekend was good preparation before the team travels to California next weekend.
“This weekend was great just to get back into the routine of playing matches, going through recovery after your matches and making sure we can do whatever we can to prepare,” Woolcock said. “I think we definitely gained some confidence.”
The team will now shift its focus to next weekend as it prepares to take on No. 18 Southern California and No. 3 Pepperdine on Friday and Saturday.
“I think California will be even stiffer competition than we saw this weekend, so I think we’ll just build on what we all did and dig deep every single point,” Neel said.
Contact Spencer Thompson at sthompson@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @spencemthompson.
Anna Danilina watches the ball during the 2016 ITA Regional Championships at the Ring Tennis Complex.
