DALLAS, Texas – After falling in the first round of the ITA National Indoor Championships and earning wins in the first round of the consolation bracket, the Florida Gators and SMU Mustangs met each other in a final match for the weekend.

Doubles set the tone early for the match, with a quick 6-1 win on court three by Kevin Edengren and Andreas Timini against Jerry Barton and Krish Arora of SMU. Henry Jefferson and Lorenzo Claverie followed up closely on court one to take the point with a 6-4 victory of Alex Finkelstein and Trevor Svajda. With the doubles point on the board for the Gators, Pablo Perez Ramos and Tanapatt Nirundorn left their match against Georgi Georgiev and Vikas Deo unfinished on court two, but were up 6-5 before ending the match.

In singles, Edengren carried the momentum of his previous night’s success against No. 16 Clemson into the match against his match on court six against Meethre Barot of SMU going 6-3, 6-0. The Mustang’s took court one with No. 1 ranked Trevor Svajda winning 6-1, 7-5 over Florida’s No. 54 ranked Adhithya Ganesan. No. 50 Jefferson defeated Alex Finklestein 6-4, 6-4 on court two to make the score 3-1 in favor of the Gators. No. 32 ranked Ramos was able to clinch the match for the team on court four with a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over Krish Arora. Claverie’s match on court three and Nirundorn’s match on court five were left unfinished with Nirundorn splitting sets against Jerry Barton and Claverie one game away from splitting sets with Georgi Georgiev.

This win moved the Gators to a program record of 5-2 over the Mustangs and improve their season record to 6-3.

Straight from the Court

Coach Steinberg on his message to the team to carry momentum from their 4-3 victory over No. 16 Clemson into SMU match…

• “Just to be hungry. We came out yesterday super hungry after a loss and the message was ‘Hey, just because we won, we still have to have that hunger coming off of wins. We have high goals at the University of Florida and that’s the way it should be.’ The message is always to play together, to be there. It’s the last day, we’re going to be tired, so are they. I think we really needed each other more than ever today, this Sunday of the indoors is always tough.”

Coach Steinberg on how this momentum helps the team as they head into SEC play…

• “We really needed that because the SEC is a tough road, that’s for sure. It starts next week, and I think mentally, we needed to end the tournaments the right way, going in and playing well. Guys are really stepping up and so we’re excited. We love playing in our conference. You get two matches every weekend, it’s like national indoors every weekend, so I know this will help us a lot. The momentum going into next week and just the whole mindset of the team is where it needs to be.”

Match Results
Doubles

ORDER OF FINISH: 3, 1 (2 – UNFINISHED)
Singles

ORDER OF FINISH: 6, 1, 2, 4 (3, 5 – UNFINISHED)

Up Next

The Gators start SEC play on the road opening with a match at Auburn on Saturday, Feb. 21 at 1 p.m. EST and will then head to Athens, Ga. to face the Georgia Bulldogs on Monday, Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. EST. The Gators are 51-16 over the Tigers, winning last season’s meeting 7-0 at home. Against the Bulldogs, the Gators are 44-66-1, with a 4-3 win over Georgia last season.

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