Florida Gators
Wake Forest - NCAA QF
Freshmen Propel Women's Tennis into NCAA Semifinal
Saturday, May 18, 2002 | Women's Tennis
Florida freshmen Alexis Gordon (Windsor, CT) and Zerene Reyes (Mexico City, Mexico) went a combined 4-0 in their respective singles and doubles matches Friday afternoon, helping the top-seeded Gators defeat No. 8-seeded Wake Forest 4-0 in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Women's Tennis Championships. Today's victory marks the 15th time in the last 16 years that Florida (23-1) has advanced to the NCAA Semifinals.
Florida plays Tennessee (21-9) on Saturday at 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET) at the Taube Family Tennis Center. It is the first-ever NCAA Semifinal appearance for the Lady Vols.
Today's victory marks the 15th time in the last 16 years that Florida has advanced to the NCAA Semifinals.
"I can't say enough about our two freshmen. The two have just been phenomenal," UF head coach Roland Thornqvist said. "We would not be where we are today or have the kind of season that we have been having without them."
"Everything is going great," Reyes said about her first NCAA experience. "I was a little nervous at first, but I'm doing good now. Before I played my first match in the NCAA Championships, I went to Jessica (Lehnhoff) and asked her for advice and she was great. She helped me relax and talked to be a while about what to expect."
Gordon recorded her first career victory in the NCAA Championships with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win over Karin Coetzee at the No. 4 position. After two no decisions and one loss, Gordon's inaugural postseason win was especially sweet as she provided the clinching match victory against Wake Forest (24-6) to send the Gators into the semifinals for the eighth consecutive year. Gordon held serve throughout the deciding set, while earning breaks in the first and fifth games to capture the win.
"I was nervous heading into singles because of the way I played yesterday (losing in straight sets), but I focused on playing one point at time today," Gordon said. "The third set was really, really tough. It was important for me to get my serve in and hang in there at the end."
Reyes gave Florida a 3-0 lead after defeating Maren Haus 6-3, 6-2 at the No. 3 position. In the second set, the Gator rookie capitalized with service breaks in the first and fifth games, while holding her serve to produce the victory.
"She had a really good serve and I just did what I needed to do to return it," Reyes said. "She didn't move that well side to side, thought, so I kept hitting angles and remained patient."
Junior Julia Scaringe (Marietta, GA) continued her impressive postseason run, as she was the first Gator off the singles court with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Danielle Schwartz at the no. 6 position. Scaringe benefited from a total of six service breaks, including two that ended both sets.
"(Danielle Schwartz) played really well, I just returned great - I don't know where that came from," Scaringe laughed. "I have felt really good the past couple of weeks. My strokes are finally clicking again and I have my rhythm."
One the dual match was clinched, the remaining singles matches were abandoned, including the featured match on court No. 1, where the top two ranked singles players in the country were slugging every point. UF's top-ranked Jessica Lehnhoff (Delray Beach, FL) battled second-ranked Bea Bielik to a no decision. Bielik was the recipient of the only service break in the first set, as she won that 6-4 before the match was halted midway through the second-set tiebreaker.
After splitting the doubles matches on courts 1 and 3, Florida rallied to win the doubles point, thanks to the Gator's relentless No. 2 duo of Alexis Gordon and Julia Scaringe, who refused to give up despite trailing the entire match against Janet Bergman and Maren Haus. The Florida pair found themselves receiving, down 5-3 in the eight-game pro-set, but broke Bergman's serve to stay within reach. However, the 10th game was extremely long and Wake Forest broke Scaringe's serve when Gordon's volley sailed long. UF quickly broke back and then held on Gordon's serve for the first time in the match to even the score at 6-all. Haus held to keep the pressure on, as the Wake Forest duo actually had one match point on Scaringe's serve in the following game. But the Gators didn't panic and won the next three points to bring the score to 7-all and the remaining two games were holds of serve to force a deciding tiebreaker. Bergman opened by holding and Scaringe held her next two serves to give UF a 2-1 lead. The Gators then earned a pair of mini-breaks to take a 4-1 lead, but Wake's duo captured the next two points to get within 4-3. However, UF jumped on both of Bergman's serves and Scaringe served out the final two points to give the Gators the 9-8 (3) win and secure the important doubles point.
"We played really smart toward the end of the match," Thornqvist said. "We kept our calm in the tiebreaker and put the ball where it needed to be. All year we've talked about keeping our cool under pressure and they did a fantastic job of that today. I thought that was the difference."
"We had a lot of real close games early, but we would make a stupid error and not win some of those games," Scaringe said. "We were clam because we knew if we kept doing the right things it was eventually going to click for us."
NCAA Women's Tennis Championships Quarterfinals
Stanford, Calif.
Taube Family Tennis Center
Fri., May 17, 2002
Complete Team Results (seed)
(1) Florida 4, (8) Wake Forest 0
(13) Tennessee 4, Virginia Commonwealth 3
(3) Stanford 4, (6) North Carolina 1
(2) Georgia 4, (7) UCLA 2
Individual Florida Results
Final Score: Florida 4, Wake Forest 0
Doubles
1- Bea Bielik/Karin Coetzee, WF d. Lindsay Dawaf/Jessica Lehnhoff (3), UF 8-5
2-Alexis Gordon/Julia Scaringe, UF d. Janet Bergman/Maren Haus, WF 9-8 (3)*
3-Annika Bengtsson/Zerene Reyes, UF d. Katie Martzolf/Danielle Schwartz, WF 8-2
Singles
1-Jessica Lehnhoff (1), UF vs. Bea Bielik (2), WF DNF
2-Lindsay Dawaf (18), UF vs. Janet Bergman (20), WF DNF
3-Zerene Reyes (53), UF d. Maren Haus, WF 6-3, 6-2
4- Alexis Gordon (118), UF d. Karin Coetzee, WF 6-3, 2-6, 6-2*
5-Annika Bengtsson, UF vs. Katie Martzolf (94), WF DNF
6-Julia Scaringe, UF d. Danielle Schwartz, WF 6-4, 6-2
END OF REPORT
