Caroline Hitimana’s run of perfection ended Sunday, but her undefeated singles record remained intact.
In a match that took more than two hours, Hitimana dropped her first set of the dual match season in a 6-2, 3-6, 1-0 (10-1) defeat of Mississippi’s Vivian Vlaar for her eighth win in as many matches this year.
Her win, coupled with a loss by Sofie Oyen, made Hitimana Florida’s only remaining undefeated player in singles. Every time she has played singles, Hitimana has won. Every time she’s won, the Gators have won. Such was the case on Sunday, when No. 2 Florida (13-1, 6-0 Southeastern Conference) defeated No. 19 Ole Miss 6-1.
“My first set wasn’t that hard,” Hitimana said. “(Vlaar) made a lot of mistakes and I ended up winning. In the second set, she started playing a little better, putting balls away, hitting winners, and I kept trying to hang in there and play deeper, but it didn’t go my way.”
After dropping that second set, one in which Hitimana looked out of sorts, the momentum of the match had tipped in her opponent’s favor. But once the third-set super tiebreak started, everything changed. Whether Hitimana rediscovered her first-set game or her opponent simply became tired, the final set was never close. She won 10-1, something she admitted was partially due to the climate.
“We’re in Florida, it’s 85 degrees, and other players aren’t used to it,” she said. “It’s always good when it’s a long match, other players get tired, and we still fight as hard as we can because we’re the fitter team. I try to make them run and make them hit one more ball, and have them tired and miss the last shot.”
The conditioning aspect has been something that other players and coach Roland Thornqvist have mentioned as being a major factor going forward. The Gators are not a high-powered offense like many other top teams. Instead, the squad focuses on being the more physically fit team. Part of that philosophy was on display Sunday in Hitimana’s match.
Being able to force opponents to make extra shots through playing great defensive tennis is a team-wide strength, but Thornqvist said that Hitimana does it particularly well.
“She’s so cagy. She can get out of jams, she’s gotten more physical from her freshman year,” he said. “Her legs move better and that’s really important for the way she plays. She’ll let people attack her and come in, but she can play defense really well.”
Before the postgame media session, Thornqvist pulled Hitimana aside as she walked into the conference room. He told her that they were going to work on depth during the week in practice, a sign that the coach wanted her to create some more offense.
Hitimana nodded, a smirk on her face. After losing her first set of the year minutes before, she already had been assigned her next challenge.
