The veteran UF women’s tennis coach, whose team plays at No. 1-seed North Carolina on Friday for a berth in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals, isn’t ready to say goodbye to Super Senior McCartney Kessler.
He would take a roster of Kessler clones if offered.
“Those kinds of stories, we’re really proud of,” Thornqvist said. “That’s what we’re looking to do.”
The first memory Thornqvist has of Kessler left a lasting impression. A rising junior player from Calhoun, Ga., at the time, Kessler was playing in a summer amateur tournament at UF. Her first-round opponent that day was Peggy Porter, a few years older than Kessler and a member of the UF team from 2014-18.
“I figured I would go up in the stands to watch,” Thornqvist said. “It was like July, hotter than blazes. I get up there with a hat and my towel around me. They’re playing here on Court 5. One thing that stood out right away was that McCartney was not afraid. She was 13 years old and not afraid at all.
“I just loved it.”
Thornqvist was already aware of the tennis-loving Kessler family. McCartney’s older brother, McClain Kessler, was soon to join the UF men’s team in 2015. Meanwhile, their parents, Julie and Carl Kessler, played tennis at UCF in the 1980s. And McCartney’s older sister, Mackenzie, played club tennis at UCF.
The Kessler kids grew up around the game, packed in the car with rackets and balls as Julie and Carl bounced around playing in adult leagues. The clock started to tick toward the day they would go from spectators to players as they got older.
McCartney has a memory, too. She considers it a personal highlight during her time with the Gators. Flashback to April 2019, and McCartney, emerging as a future No. 1 player for the Gators, beat Michigan’s Giulia Pairone in an upset. The Gators trailed 3-1 before tying the match, leaving the Kessler-Pairone battle as the deciding point.
Kessler rallied for a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory to clinch one of Florida’s biggest wins in a period of transition for the program following a run to the national title in 2017.
“It just came down to my match,” Kessler said. “They were ranked a lot higher than we were. We had a few losses that we weren’t particularly excited about, and it was just really an exciting match to win at…
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