Vols escape Ole Miss in first round, cannot overcome early deficit to Gators in next round
Winning one championship is great, but repeating is even better.
With the increase in prestige, there is also an increase in difficulty; it is even harder for a team to repeat than to win the first time around. This is a lesson that the UT men’s tennis team learned this past weekend at the SEC Championships in Gainesville, Fla, as they failed to survive past the second round .
Fresh off achieving their second consecutive SEC regular-season title, as well as being ranked No. 2 in the nation by the ITA, the Vols were poised to continue their winning ways in tournament play. In the beginning, it seemed as though they would.
The Vols’ first matchup in the tournament was against Ole Miss, a team the Orange and White had handled easily in the regular season. But this match was different.
The Vols opened up strong in doubles play, clinching the first two matches and securing the doubles point. Following this, the Vols earned two quick wins in singles from sophomore Tennys Sandgren and senior John-Patrick Smith, both in straight sets, to make the score 3-1. With only one more point necessary for victory, the Vols had to wait for more than an hour for senior Matteo Fago to clinch the necessary fourth point. The marathon match began an hour after its initial 6 p.m. start time and lasted until 11 p.m.
After the match, head coach Sam Winterbotham, though pleased with the victory, was not happy with the team’s overall performance.
“I thought we started really well, but we got a little loose in the middle,” Winterbotham said. “I would have liked us to get ahead and stay ahead. We’ve got to refocus for tomorrow.”
Unfortunately for the Vols, this lack of focus was not corrected once they took the court in the semifinals to take on the Florida Gators.
Despite an easy victory over the Gators in the regular season in which UT cruised to a 7-0 shellacking of its rivals, the situation Saturday was different.
UT opened strong in the doubles, winning two of three matches. But the Vols’ dreams of repeating ended almost as soon as the singles matches began.
“Florida came out in singles and they competed, and it was a real match,” Winterbotham said. “We’re in Gainesville, and the guys have the experience. We know what’s coming. We knew how to handle it. We just didn’t.”
In singles play, the Vols struggled to find their footing on the Gator’s home court.
Following two quick defeats for the Vols, Smith — who went into the match carrying the No. 11-overall ranking in singles play, to go along with a five-match winning streak — was handled by Alexandre Lacroix in straight sets, putting the Vols in a nearly insurmountable 3-1 deficit.
The Vols did not give up, as Rhyne Williams fought through a tough match to win in straight sets, making the score 3-2. This, however, proved to be a last gasp, as the finalpoint came from Billy Federhofer, who clinched the match for the Gators by beating Fago in three sets.
The magnitude of this victory was not lost on Florida head coach Andy Jackson, who was more than proud of his team’s showing.
“Our guys are really excited, because we played an extremely good match against a championship team,” Jackson said. “We know it’s one of the best four teams in the country, and they’ve already won an SEC championship. We’ve got a chance to win one tomorrow.”
For the Vols, the season is not yet over, but an important lesson needs to be learned from this weekend, one Winterbotham summed up on Saturday.
“We’ve got to learn,” Winterbotham said. “For us to win a national championship — which is our goal and what our team is capable of doing — we have to be able to handle these situations.”
