The Florida Gators men’s tennis team started its season in a big way in Auburn, Alabama, this past weekend, with a 24-3 record in singles and a 6-6 record in doubles in its first official competition since March.
The Tiger Fall Invitational, a conference-only event hosted by the Auburn Tigers, included the host team and brigades from Alabama, Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt.
The Gators faced the Tigers on the opening day Friday and got off to a fast start in singles, dropping only one of nine matches. However, the Gators surprisingly struggled in doubles, with Sam Riffice and Duarte Vale the only victorious duo out of four matches.
Saturday was more of the same in terms of singles, but the match saw a complete turnaround in doubles matches. Facing the Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida won seven of nine singles matches and rebounded to take all but one doubles match, improving its respective records to 15-3 and 4-4 through the first two days.
The Gators strongest overall showing came in the form of Sunday singles. In eight matches against Vanderbilt and one single match against Ole Miss, Florida swept all nine of them with only one match reaching a third set.
The Sunday doubles matches were a mixed bag, with two wins and two losses, bringing the overall doubles record for the week to exactly .500. However, the team recuperated well after their struggles Friday, with a 5-3 record the final two days.
The team captains Sam Riffice and Duarte Vale played up to their titles this weekend. Riffice, a junior, won all six of his matches, the only Gator to do so. Vale, a senior, won five of his six matches, including all three of his singles matches.
The Gators play next Oct. 23-25 in another all-conference invite hosted by South Carolina.
Contact Ryan Haley at rhaley@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @ryan_dhaley.
Senior captian Duarte Vale won five of six matches in the Gators' first tournament of the 2020 fall season.
Ryan Haley, a UF journalism senior with a sports & media specialization from Jacksonville, Florida, is Summer 2022's Engagement Managing Editor. He grew up playing a bunch of different sports before settling on golf, following Rory McIlroy and all Philadelphia sports teams. He also loves all things fiction, reading, watching shows and movies and talking about whatever current story or character is in his head.
