Baylor
Florida
Men's Tennis Claws Past Florida
1/24/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Jan. 24, 2010
WACO, Texas- Almost a year later and a change of venue made all of the difference as the sixth-ranked men's tennis team claimed a 5-2 victory over the 11th-ranked Florida Gators at the Baylor Tennis Center on Sunday. It was on January 25, 2009 that a 10th-ranked Gator team dominated the seventh-ranked Bears 7-0 in Gainesville."In these first couple matches you just don't know what you are going to get," head coach Matt Knoll said. "We got a pretty good effort. I think some guys obviously stood out, but I think we got a tougher win today than we had the other day. The doubles was high intensity and I thought on a majority of the courts we did a super job."
The Bears got a big boost out of the gate in doubles from the first time doubles pairing of Julian Bley and Sergio Ramirez as the duo quickly dispatched of Billy Federhofer and Bob Van Overbeek 8-1 at the No. 3 position. The next two doubles matches went down to the wire, but trailing 6-4 Denes Lukacs and Maros Horny turned it on for the Bears to win five of the next six points and win the match 9-7. After the Bears had clinched the point with those two victories, Florida's 10th-ranked tandem of Antoine Benneteau and Alexandre Lacroix came back from a 7-4 deficit to knock off Jordan Rux and Attila Bucko, 9-7.
"We haven't played doubles this well this early in a long time," Knoll said. "We are thrilled to be able to get it done today."
In singles, the Gators opened it up by winning at the No. 5 position to tie the match at one as Joseph Burkhardt defeated Sergio Ramirez 6-2, 6-0. However, the Bears responded with wins at courts six and three respectively as Horny beat Nassim Slilam 6-4, 6-3 and Attila Bucko took down Sekou Bangoura 6-4, 6-4. For the Gators final point Benneteau beat Dominik Mueller 6-4, 6-1. To clinch the match 11th-ranked Rux took down Van Overbeek of Florida 7-5, 6-2 for his second win of the season. With the match over Denes Lukacs took down seventh-ranked Lacroix 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
"I thought Jordan managed the day well," Knoll said. "Part of that is Jordan is just, so stinking athletic that the high wind doesn't bother those guys as much. Jordan did a super job today. I thought it was one of his best matches we have had in a long time."
Baylor improves to 2-0 on the young season and move to 5-3 against the Gators in the all-time season series. The Gators are now 1-1 on the season, while the Bears now own a 233-84 record against ranked opponents in the Matt Knoll era.
The Bears will now play next weekend in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend at the Baylor Tennis Center against Iowa on Saturday, Jan. 30 with a match following against TCU or Texas A&M Corpus-Christi on Sunday, Jan. 31 at 1 p.m. If Baylor wins both of those matches they will advance to play in the National Team Indoor Feb. 12-15.
Players Mentioned
