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No. 7 Baylor (1-0) at No. 9 Florida (1-0) Jan. 23, 2011 | 11 a.m. CST| Gainesville, Fla. | Linder Stadium (1,000) Live Scoring/Blog: GatorZone.com

Gametracker | In-Match Blog | Match Notes

The seventh-ranked Baylor men's tennis team will play the first of five scheduled road matches on the season when the Bears invade Gainesville, Fla., on Sunday to tangle with the ninth-ranked Florida Gators.

The top 10 battle is scheduled for an 11 a.m. (CST) €ˆstart in Linder Stadium at the Ring Tennis Complex. The match will be the second for both schools on the year with each looking to stay undefeated on the young season. The Bears and Gators both hosted and easily won their season openers over unranked foes.

Baylor's singles lineup is made up of four returnees, Jordan Rux, Sergio Ramirez, Roberto Maytin and Julian Bley, and two transfers in John Peers and Kike Grangeiro.

Peers is the lone ranked Bear in singles at No. 22, while he teams with Maytin to form the fourth-ranked duo in the country.

LAST TIME OUT: The Bears got their first win of the season with a 6-1 thrashing of Louisiana-Lafayette on Thursday. However, the win did not come without an adventure as the Bears and Ragin' Cajuns were forced to move their match to the covered courts in Ennis, Texas, because of windy conditions in Waco. In the match, Baylor captured all three doubles matches and John Peers, Sergio Ramirez, Roberto Maytin, Kike Grangeiro and Julian Bley all recorded their first win of the season in singles.

LOOKING AHEAD: After playing Florida on Sunday, the Bears will return to the Lone Star state, where they will next face Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Fri., Jan. 28 at 3 p.m. BU has never lost to the Islanders in the Matt Knoll era going 8-0 against them, however TAMU-CC won the previous six meetings between the two schools, before Knoll arrived. The match will close out the action for Baylor in the month of January.

ROAD WARRIORS: €ˆWhile Baylor's record in the last 14 years is not as impressive on the road as it is at home the Bears still have come out victorious in 73 percent of road matches. Knoll has led the Bears to an 89-33 record on the road with the best season of travel coming in 2005 when BU went 9-0.

BAYLOR €ˆIN €ˆROAD OPENERS: The Bears have won their first road match of the season for the last four years and are 10-4 in road openers during Knoll's time in Waco. The Bears last lost a road opener in 2006 when they fell to No. 7 Virginia in Charlottesville, 6-1.

BAYLOR AGAINST TOP 10 TEAMS: During Knoll's 14 years at Baylor, the Bears are 39-40 against teams ranked in the top 10. Last season Baylor was 3-4 against top 10 opponents. The Bears best year against top 10 competition came in 2005 when they went 10-1 in such contests.

COLD €ˆWEATHER €ˆHOT €ˆRESULTS: During the month of January the Bears have produced a 27-5 record under Knoll. Last season, Baylor was 3-0 in January and the Bears are currently on a six-match win streak in the month with their last loss coming on Jan. 25, 2009 at No. 10 Florida. Before Knoll arrived in Waco the Bears had only played 13 total matches in January, posting a 6-7 record.

SCOUTING FLORIDA: The ninth-ranked Florida Gators head into Sunday's top 10 bout coming off their 23rd straight win to open a season. UF €ˆshutout Furman, 7-0, on Friday afternoon at home with five of its six singles players winning in straight sets and all three of its doubles teams capturing victories. Andy Jackson in his 10th season as the Gators coach, has a roster of one senior, one junior, three sophomores and three freshmen. The Gators are coming off a year that saw them go 21-5 and advance to the Round of 16 of the NCAA €ˆChampionship. It was Florida's 20th consecutive trip to the NCAAs.

RANKED GATORS: Florida is led by senior Alex Lacroix, who is ranked fourth in the ITA €ˆsingles listings. The Frenchman went 18-6 last season for the Gators at the No. 1 position and earned All-SEC €ˆfirst team honors. Florida native Sekou Bangoura is the Gators' next highest ranked player at No. 28. The sophomore posted a 21-3 mark last season in dual matches. Fellow sophomore Bob van Overbeek rounds out the ranked Gators at No. 52. He went 15-5 in singles matches last season. The Gators have two doubles teams in the top 75 as Lacroix pairs with Nassim Slilam to be ranked No. 11, while Bangoura partners with Billy Federhofer to be listed at No. 54.

SERIES RECORD: The Bears hold a 5-4 series advantage over the Gators in a rivalry that dates back to 2004. Since 2004, the two programs have played each other once every season except for in 2005 and 2010 when they played each other twice. Baylor won the first three matches in the series, but Florida has taken four of the last six. At home the Bears are 2-1 against Florida, while in Gainesville the Gators hold a 2-1 series lead. The last time Baylor won in Gainesville was March 2, 2005. The Bears lead 2-1 in neutral site meetings.

LAST €ˆTIME AGAINST FLORIDA: The Bears and Gators met twice last season with sixth ranked Baylor taking the first meeting in Waco, 5-2, over 11th-ranked Florida on Jan. 24. The Gators returned the favor only 19 days later as they got the better of the Bears, 4-2, in the first round of the National Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va. The last time Baylor traveled to Gainesville on Jan. 25, 2009, No. 10 Florida handed the seventh-ranked Bears a 7-0 defeat. That loss is the last time BU was blanked, 7-0.

Quotes - Head Coach Matt Knoll
On the match with Florida:
"We went down to Gainesville in 2009 and we didn't win a match, so we know how tough it is to win down there. They beat us the last time we played, so we are a clear underdog and we are just going to hope we can go down there and make a good match out of it."