After a 4-1 loss to Florida State, the Gators are now returning to Gainesville for another shot at redemption.
Familiar foes from down I-75 are taking their buses to the Swamp to try and sweep UF in the 2021 campaign: No. 22 UCF. Coming off a four-game win streak, UCF already dueled Florida during the past two weeks. The Knights left the last meeting with a 4-3 victory.
The Gators have proven their singles play can earn them a victory. During their match against Georgia State, competitors, such as junior Sydney Berlin and freshmen Amber McGinnis, earned their own wins for a 7-0 sweep.
Last Thursday, No. 8 Florida State found a way to shut down Florida’s singles play, only giving up a game to freshman Sarah Dahlstrom. It was Dahlstrom’s second dual-match win for the year. The Sweden native will look for her own sense of redemption after dropping her match against UCF junior Ksenia Kuznetsova 0-6,1-6.
The past two matches have shown that the Gators need to improve their doubles competition drastically.
Since the Georgia State match, starting duo McCartney Kessler and Marlee Zein have still been unable to secure their first win. They lost to FSU’s No. 7 Victoria Allen and Petra Hule and didn’t finish a match against UCF.
Florida only lost to UCF by one point in their last matchup, so the doubles point advantage will be a key to success on Tuesday.
The lineups will be set an hour before the first serve. It’s likely that head coach Roland Thronqvist will switch up the lineups from the previous match.
The action is set to start Tuesday at 5 p.m. The matchup and live stats will be available on FloridaGators.com.
Contact Jesse Richardson at jrichardson@alligator.org or follow him on Twitter @JesseRich352
