Coming off a two-win weekend at home, the Gators fell to Southern Methodist University in Dallas at 5 p.m. on Friday, 4-3.
In doubles, UF junior Tanapatt Nirundorn and sophomore Adhitya Ganesan breezed by SMU senior Maks Silagy and freshman Georgi Georgiev on court one to win the first match for Florida, 6-3.
However, SMU would win the next two matches to seal the doubles point.
UF sophomores Henry Jefferson and Jeremy Jin struggled against senior Louis Cloud and sophomore Trevor Svajda on court two. Tied 3-3, the Mustangs rallied for three straight games to take the win over Florida 6-3.
In the final doubles match of the day, UF sophomore Kevin Edengren and senior JanMagnus Johnson battled junior Jerry Barton and freshman Ofek Shimanov into a tiebreaker on court three. Despite trailing by a game the entire match, the Florida pair tied the match 6-6. However, the Gators ran out of gas, as they couldn’t finish the job in the tiebreaker and ultimately fell 7-6(2).
Now already trailing 1-0, the Gators fought hard in singles, but came up short of completing the comeback.
Edengren struggled against Georgiev on court five, as the Mustang pulled out set one 6-4. Unable to comeback in the second set, Edengren fell 6-2, as SMU earned its second point.
On court six, Nirundorn took an early lead against Silagy and never looked back, trumping the senior in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 to earn Florida its first point of the match.
Ganesan defeated No. 70 Svajda in a hard-fought battle on court one. The UF sophomore took his opponent to a tiebreaker in the first set, which the former won 7-6(3). Things began to look up for Florida from there, as Ganesan won set two 7-5 to tie the match 2-2.
Jefferson went back and forth with Shimanov into three sets on the third court, taking set one 6-4 before quickly dropping the second, 6-1. The momentum from the second set was just what Shimanov needed, as he defeated his UF adversary set three 6-2, earning SMU its third point.
On court two, No. 54 Jin fell to Barton in the first set 6-2, but came back with a strong 6-3 victory in the second set. However, the Australian Gator couldn’t seal the deal in the third, as Barton nearly swept him to seal a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 victory and clinch the match for SMU.
After splitting the first two sets with Cloud, Johnson won the Gators’ third point due to retirement. With SMU now leading 4-2, Cloud had no reason to continue and retired in the third set up 3-1.
Noting the team has been short-handed through six matches this season, Florida coach Adam Steinberg spoke on the team’s mindset and condition prior to their Texas road trip to face both SMU and TCU.
“We’ve been fighting a lot of illness and injuries,” Steinberg said. “We're getting over the hump in that area and I think that’s really given confidence to everybody, because we haven’t really seen our team at full strength yet.”
The Gators will now set their sights on Fort Worth as they continue their road trip in Texas to face TCU at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Contact Curan Ahern at cahern@alligator.com and follow him on X at @CuranAhern
Curan is the men's tennis beat reporter and a second-year journalism sports & media major. He enjoys spending his free time with pets, at the beach and fishing.
