Florida had a successful day in Day 2 of the Gator Ranked +1 and Ivy-Plus Invitational tournaments on Saturday.
In doubles action, McClain Kessler and Chase Perez-Blanco battled it out with Johannes Ingildsen and Brandon Lancaster of Louisville to claim the doubles title in the orange draw, 8-0.
Duarte Vale and Alfredo Perez were also victorious in the doubles championship for the blue draw against Scott Jones and Timo Stodder of Tennessee with an 8-1 win.
“Our doubles play this morning was outstanding,” coach Bryan Shelton said. “For us to walk away with two of the titles already is great and tomorrow we have a couple more opportunities to win a couple more, but more than that we have another day to go out there and compete.”
In singles play, Vale and Ingildsen both went undefeated against their opponents. Vale finished off Yuval Solomon of Wake Forest, winning 6-4, 6-3. Ingildsen also stole a win off of Francisco Cerundolo of South Carolina, winning 6-1, 6-4.
Shelton was “super impressed” with Vale’s performance so far, this weekend.
“He’s acting the way we want our guys to act when they’re juniors and seniors, and he’s doing it as a freshman,” Shelton said.
Shelton was also content with Ingildsen’s performance.
“He stayed really composed out there and stayed within himself,” he said. “Today, he was relentless, just gave away no unforced errors, but he was also opportunistic when he had opportunities to move forward and finish.”
Perez and Perez-Blanco also won in consolation play, taking away victories against Ewan Moore of Tulane and Federico Gomez of Louisville, respectively.
Kessler, however, could not pull off a win against Tyler Schick of Tulane, losing 6-4, 2-4.
“I think we’ve done well,” said Ingildsen. “I see a lot of guys out there fighting as hard as they can and that’s the most important thing…We just have to keep improving.”
In New Jersey, the Gators continued to push hard into Day 2 of competition at the Ivy-Plus Invitational.
Andres Andrade won both of his matches against Jacob Hanson of Cornell (3-6, 6-2, 6-2) and Christos Antonopoulos of Penn State (7-5, 6-2). He will advance to the finals tomorrow.
Jordan Belga won both of his matches against Chase Bernstine of Virginia Tech (7-6, 6-1) and Thomas Mayronne of South Carolina (6-3, 6-1). Belga will also advance to the finals tomorrow against Christian Lakoseljac of Penn State.
Although Stephen Madonia started out strong with a victory against Vidit Vaghela of Buffalo (7-5, 6-2), he lost his consolation semis match against William Little of Baylor (3-6, 3-6).
“The tournament’s far from over,” Shelton said. “We got a lot more tennis tomorrow…we’re talking about finishing in the locker room with our guys and it’s like you gotta finish the point, you gotta finish the game, you gotta finish the set, you gotta finish the match, you gotta finish the tournament.”
You can follow Mari Faiello on Twitter @faiello_mari, and contact her at mfaiello@alligator.org.
Junior McClain Kessler clinched the Round of 16 match for Florida over Ole Miss on Friday night, sending the Gators to the NCAA Quarterfinals.
