The No. 23 Gators men’s tennis team opened regular season play Friday at home in a doubleheader against The Citadel Bulldogs and the University of North Florida Ospreys.
In the first match, the Gators shined on a cloudy morning with a dominant win against The Citadel, where they swept all courts, winning 7-0.
Starting off in doubles, the Gators jumped out to early leads on Courts 1 and 2. Florida’s freshman duo of Aidan Kim and Jeremy Jin dominated from the first point and never let up. They broke serve on the Bulldogs' first service game with their aggressive play style and got the Gators on the board first with a 6-1 victory.
Court 2 featured sophomore Tanapatt Nirundorn and true freshman Adhithya Ganesan. Behind the strong serving of Ganesan and the precise shot selection of Nirundorn, the Gators came out on top 6-3. This match clinched the doubles point for the Gators.
The match on Court 3 included junior Nate Bonetto and true freshman Henry Jefferson. The Gator pair found themselves down 2-0 in the early stages of the set but battled back to lead 3-2. The match was halted by a Bonetto nosebleed, and the match never resumed play due to the other courts finishing.
Head coach Adam Steinberg played five true freshmen out of the six available courts in singles play. The lone upperclassman was graduate transfer and No. 86-ranked JanMagnus Johnson, who had an impressive victory on Court 5. Johnson dominated from the first point and captured the victory 6-0, 6-2 over sophomore Ted Bagwell of the Bulldogs.
No. 57 Aidan Kim on Court 2 was surgical in his match against senior Sebastian Kamieniecki, winning 6-0, 6-3. Court one was a battle between No. 75 Jeremy Jin and Bulldogs senior Hayden Shoemake. Jin sealed the 6-2, 6-4 victory with a down-the-line backhand passing shot.
Courts 3 and 6 saw two big-hitting matches. On Court 3 for the Gators was Adhithya Ganesan taking on Bulldogs graduate student Teo Cariov. Court 6 featured Henry Jefferson taking on Bradey Minnich. Both matches finished with a final score of 6-4, 6-2.
The closest match of the day came on Court 5 between Gators true freshman Kevin Edengren and Bulldogs sophomore Noah Van Dyke. A back-and-forth first set was pushed to a seven-point tiebreaker where Edengren got the better of Van Dyke, taking the set 7-6. Van Dyke brought the fight to Edengren, but the true freshman won the match 7-6, 6-2.
Match two of the day for UF was an in-state battle with North Florida. Each of the three doubles matches were quite different.
On Court 1, Florida played the freshmen tandem of Jin and Kim again, and they went up against Ospreys senior pair of Jonas Hartenstein and Rodrigo Crespo. Jin and Kim rolled to a 6-3 victory. On Court 3, Bonetto and Jefferson fell to the Ospreys 6-3. The UNF duo of sophomore Andreas Scott and junior Breno Marques played extremely well and took the racket out of the Gators' hands at times.
The doubles point came down to the match on Court 2. Nirundorn and Ganesan were locked in a battle with senior PJ Kotan and redshirt junior Juan Pablo Cenoz. All eyes in the stands shifted to this court as the match was tied at 5-5. After routine holds by both duos, the set was sent into a tiebreaker. The crowd willed the Gators to victory in the tiebreaker and taking the set 7-6.
The Ospreys came out firing in singles taking early leads and getting early breaks in almost all six of the matches. The Gators weathered the storm and got the sets back to level.
On Court 5 for UF, No. 69 Nirundorn blitzed Kotan and took the first singles point of the match, extending the Gators’ lead to 2-0.
Ganesan put on a ball-striking clinic in his match on Court 3, winning 6-3, 6-2 over Cenoz.
Bonetto on Court 4 was in a war with Scott of the Ospreys. Momentum swings were the story of the first set and it resulted in a tiebreaker, in which Bonetto won 7-4. The Gator junior kept the pedal to the metal and got a key break of serve in the second set to close it out 7-6(4), 6-3.
Two matches were sent into deciding sets. On Court 2, Crespo for UNF was the aggressor and played at a high level, taking the set 6-4. No. 57 Kim fought back in the second to win 6-2 and dominated the final set 6-1
Edengren on Court 6 for the Gators also went three sets with Marques of the Ospreys. In the end, Edengren pulled out with a final score of 6-4,1-6, 6-1.
UNF took the win on Court 1 as Hartenstein proved to be too tough for Jin in a physical match. The contest ended at 7-6, 6-4 in favor of Hartenstein.
The Gators won the match with an overall score of 6-1.
After the match, Steinberg praised his team for their efforts…
“I was really, really happy with the way we competed…we competed the Gator way,” he said.
Steinberg complimented the crowd for the role they played in the doubles matches...
“It was really fun, I thought the atmosphere was terrific,” he said “When I took this job, it was one of the things I looked forward to, these kind of atmospheres at night, under the lights, tough match, there’s nothing better.”
The Gators move to 2-0 on the season and will be back in action Sunday at noon taking on the SMU Mustangs at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.
Contact Chandler Hawkes at chawkes@alligator.com. Follow him on Twitter @HawkesChandler.
