GATORS GO DOWN: Insights and highlights as Auburn men’s tennis and women’s tennis both beat Florida in Saturday sweep
Here are highlights from the wins and a look at the performances for the on-court heroes for both the Auburn women’s and men’s teams on Saturday.
It’s the same story, some 300 miles apart.
The Auburn men’s tennis team and the Auburn women’s tennis team both picked up big conference-opening wins over Florida on Saturday afternoon — with the men’s win coming in Auburn and the women’s win coming simultaneously but on the road in Gainesville.
It isn’t typical in the SEC for a school’s two teams to play another school’s two teams on the same day in conference play, but a scheduling anomaly made it all Auburn-Florida on Saturday on the tennis courts — and the results were all the same: Gators grilled.
Auburn’s teams won the doubles points in both matches.
It was only the fifth win for Auburn over Florida win the women’s team’s program history. For those Tigers, it was a statement win for a team beginning its march to the SEC Tournament.
“Florida is a seven-time national championship program, and to win 5-2 on the road in our first outdoor match in a while is really impressive,” Auburn women’s tennis head coach Jordan Szabo said in a release from the university. “We’re looking for six players to come out and play their best tennis, and I don’t think we’ve done that yet this year, but this is a really good start to the SEC schedule at a really difficult place to play against a historic program and a legendary coach like Per Nilsson.”
For the men, it was a wave-making win to open conference play, an upset on paper over a 15th-ranked Gators team.
“I think people may take us lightly and we go under the radar, but over the last couple of weeks we have made some statements and opened some eyes to what we are capable of doing,” Auburn men’s tennis head coach Bobby Reynolds said.
Both Auburn teams won the doubles points to start conference play strong and put both sets of Gators on their heels.
Here are the players who got it done for both teams, with insights and highlights:
Winning the doubles points
Women’s ace DJ Bennett led the Tigers on Court 1 in Florida, winning 6-3, 6-3 in No. 1 singles and winning in Court 1 doubles with her partner Ava Esposito — who also picked up a win on Court 6 in singles 6-3, 6-0.
The opponents for Bennett and Esposito, Florida’s Xinyi Nong and Nikola Daubnerova, made the field at the doubles NCAA Tournament last November.
The Tigers’ other win in doubles, to secure the doubles point, came from Ekatarina Khairutdinova and Ashton Bowers — who clinched up the point with a 6-3 win as Auburn trailed on Court 2.
Up 5-3 on the deuce point with the chance to break, the Auburn duo got a volley past the Gators to pick up Auburn’s first win on the doubles court.
The win by Bennett and Esposito shortly followed and clinched the doubles point.
For the men, doubles came down to Auburn’s Blaydes brothers on Court 1, which headed to a tiebreaker: