Right before the Gators faced off against Florida State in Orlando at the beginning of the tennis season, freshman Victoria Emma stated she didn’t consider Florida State much of a rival. She asserted that the SEC was where the real rivalries were, and she named one team in particular: the Georgia Bulldogs.
Florida (9-4, 4-0 SEC) will begin its SEC road trip with an away match at Georgia (8-2, 3-0 SEC).
The Gators started out poorly to begin the season, ending up unranked with a 3-4 record coming out of the ITA indoor championships. Now, they’ve found themselves reinvigorated with an ongoing six-match win streak where they’ve looked like an entirely different team from the beginning of the year.
Senior Peggy Porter is confident about UF’s momentum, but she isn’t getting too excited.
“I think everyone handles it differently,” she said about Florida’s win streak after its victory over Texas A&M on Sunday. “For some of us, playing well almost makes us nervous, like it’s going to get tougher. For some of us, it makes us more confident.”
The upcoming road stretch will certainly be “tougher”. Georgia is ranked No. 8 in the ITA rankings, the third-highest ranking UF has faced during the season behind No. 7 Ole Miss, No. 7 Georgia Tech and No. 1 Vanderbilt.
The Gators will face No. 30 Tennessee two days after the Bulldogs, and the team will only get a four-day break until it goes to Alabama to play the Crimson Tide and Auburn in a span of two days.
It’s a brutal schedule, coming just after the Gators were on the road for nine consecutive matches and only returned to Gainesville for two.
Coach Roland Thornqvist is ready for it.
“We have no choice,” he said of the schedule. “That’s the SEC life.”
Florida will face Georgia at 5 p.m. on Friday in Athens before moving on to Knoxville to play the Volunteers on Sunday at noon.
Follow River Wells on Twitter @riverhwells and contact him at rwells@alligator.org.
The Gators begin a stretch of four matches in eight days tonight against Georgia. “That’s the SEC life," coach Roland Thornqvist said.
