Striking the ball down the middle of the court, junior Alfredo Perez’s tennis racket slipped from his hands. His opponent, TCU’s Alex Rybakov, gingerly returned the ball to the opposite side of the court.
In a moment of desperation, Perez ran to the ball and hit it with his hand. The crowd erupted in laughter at the comically illegal maneuver.
Down 2-0 in the third set, Perez didn’t find it so funny.
Perez would go on to lose the set and the Gators (8-6) would go on to drop the match, losing 4-3 in a back-and-forth slugfest against TCU (9-3) on Wednesday night at the Ring Tennis Complex in Gainesville.
Doubles play was highly contested. TCU struck first with a win on Court 2 against the duo of junior McCain Kessler and freshman Duarte Vale, winning 6-2. On Court 1, Perez and sophomore Johannes Ingildsen came back down 4-1 against their opponents to even the score 5-5, but they weren’t be able to complete it. The Horned Frogs’ Reese Stradler and Bertus Kruger defeated UF’s duo of senior Chase Perez-Blanco and freshman Oliver Crawford, winning 7-5 and clinching the doubles point for TCU.
Florida answered in singles play, with Perez-Blanco defeating TCU’s Kruger 6-1, 6-2 for the first singles win of the night. After that, it was a ferocious battle, as the other five matches went to three sets. Almost two hours later, freshman Andy Andrade dropped his match 1-16, 7-5, 6-4, putting Florida down 2-1.
While Kessler admitted that the physical fatigue was certainly a factor during long matches like this one, he asserted that the mental fatigue was just as unforgiving.
“I think it’s more mental than physical,” he said. “You get the adrenaline going and you’re okay, but the mental part is when it gets pretty tough.”
Perez dropped his match against Rybakov 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 soon afterward, further extending the Horned Frogs’ lead.
Crawford drew it closer, however, emerging victorious in an extended match that ended 6-2, 6-7, 6-4. Ingildsen won his match almost immediately after, defeating TCU’s Trevor Johnson 1-6, 7-6, 6-4.
After Ingildsen’s win, all eyes were on Court 4, where Vale was playing TCU’s Guillermo Nunez. Vale went step for step with Nunez, but couldn’t get the ball over the net in the game’s defining point, losing 6-7, 6-3, 6-4.
While coach Bryan Shelton believed Florida had a great match, he stressed that the team can’t fall off in big moments as the year continues.
“We’ve got to be able to finish and stick with the process to completion,” he said. “We weren't able to quite finish it off in some of those matches.”
UF won’t have much time to dwell on the loss, as it’ll get back into the swing of SEC play with a match against Kentucky on Friday.
Follow River Wells on Twitter @riverhwells and contact him at rwells@alligator.org.
Junior Alfredo Perez advanced to the round of 16 in the NCAA Individual Men's Tennis Championships.
