Florida Gators
#75 South Alabama
No. 4 UF W-Tennis Moves to 4-0 with Win Over South Alabama
Saturday, February 10, 2007 | Women's Tennis
The fourth-ranked University of Florida women's tennis team showed little signs of rust after a 12-day break, earning a convincing 6-1 victory over South Alabama on Friday evening at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex.
The win, which improved the Gators' overall record to 4-0 this season, was UF's 44th consecutive regular season home victory and the team's 31st straight overall home win. South Alabama fell to 1-3.
After earning the doubles point and sweeping all three positions, the Gators jumped out early on the singles courts and earned the dual match win in just over one hour. Capturing singles victories on Friday included Csilla Borsanyi, Nina Suvak, Whitney Benik, Megan Alexander and Lolita Frangulyan.
“I'm fairly pleased with today's match,” UF head coach Roland Thornqvist said. “Our doubles continued to be pretty good and aside from the setback at No. 1 singles, we did pretty well. On a couple of the courts, we didn't handle our mistakes well early, but once we cleaned them up, I thought we played much better.”
Freshman Csilla Borsanyi completely dominated Yana Bokareva on court No. 4, 6-0, 6-1, in 42 minutes to give UF a 2-0 lead. The Gator rookie won the first 11 games before Bokareva held serve to avoid the double-bagel.
“I felt very comfortable and confident on the court today,” Borsanyi said. “We had a tough doubles match, but I seem to play better in singles after a hard doubles match and that happened again today. I felt like everything was working for me on the singles court.”
Nina Suvak, the lone senior on the Gator squad, followed 11 minutes later with a similar 6-0, 6-1 win against Rita Freitas at the No. 5 spot. In that match, the Jaguar prevented Suvak her second double-bagel victory of the young season by earning a break off Suvak's initial serve in the second set.
“I felt great on the court after a two week break,” Suvak said. “We played a lot of doubles matches and a lot of points during the break and it was good to see that we could transfer that hard work into the matches.”
Whitney Benik and Jelena Krivacevic battled hard during the first set of their No. 3 match, with both holding and trading serves early, before Benik earned another break in the seventh game and held before taking Krivacevic's serve to claim the first set. Benik held to begin the second and broke quickly in the next game, as Krivacevic's spirit seemed to fall, as Benik earned the 6-3, 6-0 win and clinched the dual match for the Gators.
UF's lone setback was the 2-6, 6-2, 1-0 (11-9) decision Diana Srebrovic dropped to Adrianna Solarova. Trailing 7-2 and facing Solarova's serve in the 10-point super-tiebreaker, Srebrovic mounted a comeback and evened the score at 8-all. But the deficit was too much and Solarova capitalized on her second match-point.
Megan Alexander battled through a tough first set against Michaela Babicova at the No. 2 position, as five of the first six games were breaks, with the Gator rookie holding serve in the second game. She emerged after all the breaks with a 4-2 advantage, with each holding serve for the remainder of the set and Alexander taking the opening set, 6-4. The second set was equally competitive, but Alexander won the big points and blanked Babicova to earn the 6-4, 6-0 victory and collect her ninth consecutive win.
Junior Lolita Frangulyan capped Friday's action with a 6-3, 4-6, 1-0 (10-7) win over Dijana Stanic in one hour and 49 minutes. The first set began with six straight breaks before Frangulyan was able to halt the trend and take a 4-3 lead. She then earned her fourth break of the set to win the opening frame. Stanic rallied and took the second to force a super-tiebreak, where she was up an early mini-break at 2-1 with the first of two serves on the way. Frangulyan took Stanic's ensuing serve to get the breaker back on-serve, as it remained until the Gator junior earned another mini break on the eighth point and one more on the 12th riding those to the win.
Florida's No. 1 and No. 2 doubles teams cruised to impressive wins, helping the Gators capture the doubles point in 36 minutes. Whitney Benik and Nina Suvak needed 28 minutes to earn an 8-0 shutout against Adrianna Solarova and Sylvanie Spangenberg at the top spot, before Megan Alexander and Diana Srebrovic topped Rita Freitas and Jelena Krivacevic, 8-1.
Action on court No. 3 was much tighter, as the two teams battled for one hour before UF's Csilla Borsanyi and Lolita Frangulyan earned the 8-3 victory to complete the sweep. The Gator pair opened the match with a break and road that until capturing a second in a very long, duce-filled seventh game to take a 5-2 lead en route to the win.
The Gators next play host to Florida International on Sunday beginning at noon. Admission is free.
Women's College Tennis
No. 4 Florida hosted No. 75 South Alabama
Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex
Gainesville, Fla.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Final Score: Florida 6, South Alabama 1
Doubles
No. 1 Whitney Benik/Nina Suvak (14), UF def. Adrianna Solarova/Sylvanie Spangenberg, USA 8-0
No. 2 Megan Alexander/Diana Srebrovic, UF def. Rita Freitas/Jelena Krivacevic, USA 8-1*
No. 3 Csilla Borsanyi/Lolita Frangulyan, UF def. Michaela Babicova/Dijana Stanic, USA 8-3
Singles
No. 1 Adrianna Solarova, USA def. Diana Srebrovic (11), UF 2-6, 6-2, 1-0 (11-9)
No. 2 Megan Alexander (95), UF def. Michaela Babicova, USA 6-4, 6-0
No. 3 Whitney Benik (78), UF def. Jelena Krovacevic, USA 6-3, 6-0*
No. 4 Csilla Borsanyi, UF def. Yana Bokareva, USA 6-0, 6-1
No. 5 Nina Suvak, UF def. Rita Freitas, USA 6-0, 6-1
No. 6 Lolita Frangulyan, UF def. Dijana Stanic, USA 6-3, 4-6, 1-0 (10-7)
Order of Finish: Doubles 1, 2, 3; Singles 4, 5, 3, 1, 2, 6
*clinched doubles point/dual match
END OF REPORT
