The Florida men’s tennis traveled to Waco, Texas, to participate in the NCAA Division I Individual Tennis Championships this week. The Gators were represented by three players: sophomore Jeremy Jin, sophomore Henry Jefferson and junior Tanapatt Nirundorn.
Jin qualified for the event on Nov. 9 via his performance at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Sectionals where he became one of the four semi-finalists and earned an automatic bid for the NCAA Individual Championships.
The other two Gators played on the doubles court. Jefferson and Nirundorn qualified for the tournament via their win at the ITA Southeast Regional Doubles Title on Oct. 20.
Jin was the first Gator to take the court on Tuesday. The first matchup for Jin was against the No. 2-seeded junior Michael Zheng from Columbia. Zheng was coming off of an incredible runner-up effort in the NCAA Championships last season.
Through the first set Jin struggled to string anything together to throw Zheng off his quest to return to the NCAA’s top step.
Through the first four games of the first set Jin was able to get to 30-30 but was unable to close out those games with a win. Jin’s first win didn’t come until Game 6 where he was able to get ahead quickly and stay ahead of a charging Zheng. Set one ended 6-1 to Zheng.
Set two opened with Jin getting ahead quickly 2-1. Zheng and Jin’s matchup remained close going into the final few points but Zheng used his experience in these moments to pull through and win the final five games to win the set and match 6-1, 6-2.
The Gators quest for another singles NCAA Championship came to an end after Jin’s loss. Jin ended the Fall season with a singles record of 8-4.
Despite the loss and elimination from the singles competition, the Gators still had the regional winning duo of Jefferson and Nirundorn competing on the doubles court.
The first round matchup for Jefferson and Nirundorn was against a duo from Duke, sophomore Cooper Williams and graduate student Theo Winegar.
In the first set Florida came out hot, winning the first three games in a row, and the set 6-1. Florida held serve each time they had possession and only allowed Duke to hold serve once out of its three attempts in the first set.
In the second set, both teams were able to showcase their talents and were battling back and forth winning multiple games in straight points.
There were no breaks of service and each team was able to win their six games. The second set went to a tiebreak. The tiebreak followed much of the same theme as the set leading up to it. The key moment came when Duke broke Florida’s serve and was able to take the lead 3-2 in the tie break.
Duke closed out the tiebreak and won the second set 7-6.
Moving into the third set, it was the same format as the tiebreaks but the only difference was that it was the first to 10 points, win by two.
The Gators went down 2-0 to start the third set but were able to score the next seven points to go ahead 7-2 moving into the final stretch of the game.
After the impressive run by Jefferson and Nirundorn, Duke’s duo was able to outshine the Gators, winning eight of the next nine points and ultimately winning the game.
Following Florida’s loss, its 2024 Fall season comes to an end.
Contact Carston Handy at chandy@alligator.org. Follow Carston on X @carston_handy.
Carston Handy is a junior journalism major with a focus in sports and media. Fall 2024 marks his first semester reporting sports with the Alligator. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his fiancé and their dog. He also enjoys playing a bunch of sports, including pickleball, basketball and soccer.
