LAKE NONA, Fla. – The No. 15 Florida Gators men’s tennis team took down No. 12 Florida State 4-2 to collect their fourth consecutive College MatchDay victory over FSU on Thursday night at the USTA National Campus.
A dynamic doubles kicked off the match between the in-state foes. On court one, Will Grant/Axel Nefve converted a break point to take a 3-1 lead and cruised the rest of the way for the 6-3 victory over Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc/Barnaby Smith. All No. 10 Tanapatt Nirundorn/Togan Tokac needed was one break point as well, with the freshman pair going up 4-2 and clinched the doubles point for the Gators, 6-3 over Joshua Dous-Karpenschif/Maks Silagy.
Requiring three singles wins to secure the match win, Florida initially went down 2-1 as Florida State won on court one and five, respectively, for the early lead.
The Gators fought and battled like they do time and time again. Tokac tied up the match 2-2 with his third win at the six spot. The freshman won three straight games to win the first frame 6-3 and demonstrated utter dominance in the second set tiebreak to defeat Barnaby Smith, 6-3, 7-6 (2).
No. 51 Nate Bonetto followed with a win at court three by defeating the highest ranked player he has met in his career. Against No. 24 Youcef Rihane, Bonetto snatched up the first set, 6-4 and had to fight till the very end in the second frame to give Florida the lead. Down 6-5 in the breaker, Bonetto rattled off three straight winning points to secure the Top-25 win, 6-4, 7-6 (8).
One victory away from clinching the match, Braswell came up clutch. A gritty first set against No. 53 Jamie Connel started off the…
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