Florida Gators Men’s Tennis Wins First Match of SEC Tournament

The No. 24 Florida Gators men’s tennis won its first match yesterday (4-1) in the 2023 SEC tournament. The Gators secured a win against the No. 22 Auburn Tigers in Auburn, Alabama.

Doubles Match Ups

To start the match off on court one, No. 4 doubles partners Will Grant/Axel Nefve competed against Auburn’s No. 31 Raul Dobai/Finn Murgett. The outcome was not in the Gators’ favor as the game finished 6-2 Auburn.

Court two made a nice comeback for the Gators as Nate Bonetto/Tanapatt Nirundorn ultimately came out on top against Auburn’s Billy Blaydes/Jan Galka (7-5). Bonetto/Tanapatt started off behind and eventually Florida called it even and tied the Tigers at 4-4. The tie breaker caused a 5-5 score for the game until the Gators finished the Tigers. Bonetto/Nirundorn were the only doubles partners to conquer the Tigers.

https://twitter.com/GatorsMTN/status/1649173350231490560?s=20

Gators doubles partners Jonah Braswell/Lukas Greif fell to Tigers Alejandro Moreno/Tyler Stice (6-7) on court three giving Auburn the 1-0 advantage.

Seamless Singles

All six singles Gators won each opening set: No. 37 Nefve, No. 95 Grant, No. 86 Braswell, Grief, Olek Orlikowski, and Nirundorn.

No. 37 Nefve earned the Gators their first point of the meet after his ranked matchup against No. 57 Stice (6-1, 6-3).

Grief put the Gators on the board after his play against Galka and even recorded a bagel in the first set (6-0, 6-1).

Freshman Nirundorn put the Gators within one point at 3-1 with his performance against Blaydes (6-4, 6-4).

Gators junior Grant brought home the final win with his matchup against No. 115 Moreno (6-2, 6-4). This was Grant’s fourth ranked victory of the spring.

Gators Standard.#GoGators 🐊🎾 pic.twitter.com/3vHxixFF50

— Gators Men's Tennis (@GatorsMTN) April 21, 2023

The match ended (4-1) Gators.

History with the Tigers

The Gators have won the last nine matches against the Tigers. The last time Florida played Auburn in the SEC tournament was in 2010 where the Gators came out victorious (4-1). During the regular season this year, Florida won the match against Auburn 6-1.

This match yesterday added an additional win to their now 10-time winning streak over Auburn.

Florida men’s tennis won the 2022 SEC Championship last year and is hoping to be the reigning champions this year.

Next Up for Florida

The Florida Gators will play the No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs in the quarterfinals today at 4 p.m. in the Yarbrough Tennis Center.

Quarterfinals queued up. 😤

🆚 #4 Georgia (1 Seed)
📍 Auburn, Ala.
⏰ 4 p.m. ET
🏟 Yarbrough Tennis Center
📺 https://t.co/JgtTWMgcNa
📊 https://t.co/2vFEKzOkdB#GoGators 🐊🎾 | #SECChampionship pic.twitter.com/rCMtfTRjM0

— Gators Men's Tennis (@GatorsMTN) April 21, 2023