Gator Men’s Tennis Preview and Recap

Sam Riffice and Ben Shelton Highlight the Gators in the 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championship for Sam Riffice and Ben Shelton Highlight the Gators in the 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championshipingles and doubles.

https://twitter.com/GatorsMTN/status/1529814067208126464

The Gators are ranked No. 2 in the nation for tennis but have some elite talent in singles and doubles play.

https://twitter.com/ITA_Tennis/status/1529500003462414336

Ben Shelton Singles

Ben Shelton is coming into the tournament as a one-seed.

Individually, Shelton is 10-2 in singles play and won 2022 SEC Player of the Year, First Team All-SEC and SEC Tournament MVP. 

Shelton is also tied for eighth in school history with 34 singles wins this season. He is tied with Alexandre Lacroix and Justin O’Neal for that spot.

In this tournament, he’s defeated Ondrej Style and JJ Tracy to get to the quarterfinals.

And with the win over Tracy, he moved his winning streak to seven.

#1 Ben Shelton of @GatorsMTN joins teammate Sam Riffice in the #NCAATennis QFs. Shelton earns a 6-4, 6-4 win over JJ Tracy of Ohio State. pic.twitter.com/cVw1efJa2Z

— John (@JTweetsTennis) May 25, 2022

The 2021 ITA All-American Tournament Singles Champion is taking Arthur Fery from Stanford at noon on Thursday.

With a win against Fery, he will face a familiar SEC opponent either out of Tennessee or Kentucky.

Sam Riffice Singles

Riffice was the No.2 player in the preseason poles and has a Multitude of collegiate honors; 6x ITA All-American (2019 – singles; 2020 – singles, doubles; 2021 – singles; 2022 – singles, doubles).

The two-time SEC champ has had a phenomenal season thus far, going 12-0 in SEC play and is also sitting in the quarterfinals of this tournament.

Riffice is taking on Inaki Montes de la Torre out of Virginia.

Rewinding to last week, Montes defeated Riffice 7-5, 6-4 in the NCAA Quarterfinal match against Florida last Thursday.

The Gator is looking for revenge as this is a battle to get to the semi-finals.

As a result of a win, Riffice will either face August Holmgren from San Diego or Diego Nava of Xavier.

Doubles

Riffice and Shelton are both highlighting Florida in doubles as well. They are coming into the tournament as the fifth seed.

The Gators won their doubles match against Ohio State on Wednesday, advancing to the quarterfinals of doubles competition and are facing the fourth-ranked Cleeve Harper and Richard Ciamarra of Texas.

With a win against the Texas Duo, the gators will face off against a duo from either VCU or Auburn.

The doubles match is set to take place at 2:30 p.m.