The Florida men’s tennis team saw its final singles player lose in the NCAA Individual Championships. Its two doubles teams will move on to the next round.
Junior Alfredo Perez, the last singles player left for Florida in the Individual Championships, lost in straight sets in his round-of-16 match against Mississippi State’s Nuno Borges 7-6, 7-5.
Perez held sizable leads in both sets but gave away both during the match. In the critical second set, the junior held a 5-2 lead before he lost the next five games to be bounced from the singles event. This is the second year in a row the Havana, Cuba, native was eliminated in the round of 16.
In doubles, however, things got better.
Freshman Duarte Vale and junior McClain Kessler advanced to the quarterfinals with a 7-6, 7-6 win over senior Christian Langmo and freshman Adria Soriano Barrera of Miami.
The Gator tandem made runs during critical times, including a comeback from down 4-2 in the first set. The Florida duo also showed solid play in the clutch, as both sets went into 10-point tiebreakers where Vale and Kessler came out on top.
Vale and Kessler now move on to play junior Martin Joyce and senior Mikael Torpegaard of Ohio State in the quarterfinals. First serve for that match is scheduled to begin at 3 pm on Saturday.
Doubles success continued later in the afternoon.
Perez and his doubles partner, sophomore Johannes Ingildsen, rolled to a 6-3, 6-1 win over Ole Miss’s duo of junior Fabian Fallert and sophomore Tim Sandkaulen to advance to the quarterfinals with Vale and Kessler.
This quarterfinals appearance will be Perez and Ingildsen’s first together after they lost in the round of 16 last season. They will now face the Memphis duo of senior Ryan Peniston and Andrew Watson at 1 p.m.
Dylan Rudolph is a sports writer. Follow him on Twitter @dyrudolph and contact him at drudolph@alligator.org.
Junior Alfredo Perez (left) and sophomore Johannes Ingildsen (right) are onto the quarterfinals of the NCAA Doubles Championships along with fellow Gators pairing of junior McClain Kessler and freshman Duarte Vale.
