AUBURN, Ala. – To open the 2023 SEC Tournament, the No. 24 Florida men’s tennis team bounced back from an early doubles deficit and forged four convincing singles victories to surge past tournament host No. 22 Auburn, 4-1 at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.
Florida (14-12, 5-7 SEC) fell behind in doubles against Auburn (17-11, 5-7 SEC) to start the match. No. 31 Raul Dobai/Finn Murgett got the better of No. 4 Will Grant/Axel Nefve, 6-2 at the top doubles position and put the pressure on courts two and three to come through.
On court two, Nate Bonetto/Tanapatt Nirundorn fell behind 4-2 to Billy Blaydes/Jan Galka, but broke Auburn’s serve the next game, held serve, and leveled the match at 4-4. The Gators tandem converted a break tied at 5-5 for their first lead of the match and served out the set for the 7-5 victory. Despite an early 3-1 lead on court three, Jonah Braswell/Lukas Greif couldn’t hold off Alejandro Moreno/Tyler Stice and the doubles decider went to tiebreak. Moreno/Stice converted a mini break to start the breaker and sustained the advantage, winning 7-4 for the 1-0 advantage.
The response in singles from Florida was complete dominance from the jump. Courts one through six answered by securing each opening set and momentum was flipped in the Gators control. In the ranked-matchup on court one between No. 37 Nefve and No. 57 Stice, Nefve won the first two games and dropped just one game in the entire first set for the 6-1 opener. The two were locked at 3-3, but the graduate student rattled off three straight games and tied the match at one apiece….
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