Florida’s men’s tennis team announced two more new faces to join the team for 2021 on Sunday and Monday, as Nate Bonetto and Abedallah Shelbayh signed to join the team beginning in the fall of 2021.
Bonetto, a high school senior from Oregon, is a blue chip, five-star prospect according to Tennis Recruiting Network (TRN). He’s been ranked as high as the 7th overall prospect by TRN in January 2020, and reached the top overall position in their TennisRPI rankings in August 2019.
Bonetto has a 2-3 record against fellow Blue Chip prospects, 7-4 against five-star prospects and 5-1 against four-star prospects. Bonetto also won the prestigious Jesuit Tournament in 2019 as a sophomore.
Bonetto has won tournaments from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) as well, winning the Davis Trading Junior ITF Indoor Championships in 2019 as a qualifier, defeating his doubles partner Smith in the final.
Bonetto has some familiarity with some faces in the Florida tennis program as well. He lost to Gators freshman Ben Shelton in the fifth round of the 2019 United States Tennis Association (UTSA) Boys 16 Singles in three sets. He also teamed with Colton Smith to make it to the fourth round of the 2019 UTSA Boys 16 Doubles.
Shelbayh, a native of Jordan, has some ITF wins of his own. He’s won two titles each of the last three years, including the Lousada Junior Cup II and the Rafael Nadal ITF Junior I in 2020. Shelbayh also reached the singles final at the ITF Junior GRIP2 Tennis Academy and the Dunlop Bavarian Winter Championships and the singles semifinals at the M15 Manacor 02 this year as well.
Shelbayh also just cracked the top 100 in the ITF Junior Rankings for the first time last week, becoming the first player from Jordan to ever do so.
Shelbayh plays at the Rafael Nadal Academy by Movistar. He won the under-16 doubles championship at the Orange Bowl with fellow Academy student Daniel Rincón in 2019. He and Rincón defeated Ozan Colak and Hugo Kashimoto 6-1, 6-2.
Shelbayh and Bonetto will join the Gators beginning in fall 2021.
Contact Ryan Haley at rhaley@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @ryan_dhaley.
Gators recruit Nate Bonetto signs his national letter of intent to play tennis for UF. He'll join the team with fellow recruit Abedallah Shelbayh in the fall of 2021.
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.
