The skies stayed clear as 524 fans returned to support the second-seeded Florida women’s tennis team beat South Carolina in the second round of the NCAA tournament at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex on Sunday.
The Gators will take on the No. 15-seeded Clemson Tigers in the sweet-16 on Friday at 3 p.m., at Stanford University.
The Gators did not struggle to clinch the doubles point as they made easy work of the Gamecocks in under an hour.
Lauren Embree (45) and Sofie Oyen (45) beat opponents Miljana Jocic and Katerina Popova (8-2), and two minutes later, Olivia Janowicz and Joanna Mather came out on top against Dijana Stojic and Adriana Pereira (8-3).
Although Alex Cercone (2) and Allie Will (2) did not complete their set, they led Anya Morgina (40) and Dominika Kanakova (40) (7-3).
In singles play, Will (7) shut out Morgina (6-0, 6-0) on court one, earning the Gators second point and earning herself her third double bagel in just an hour of play.
“At the top of the lineup, I was really happy to see Allie’s performance,” Thornqvist said. “I thought she was outstanding today. She beat a really, really good player 6-0, 6-0. That’s really difficult to do.”
Minutes later, both Mather (42) and Cercone (54) won their second sets against Kanakova and Pereria, respectively, shutting out South Carolina for the third time this season.
On the courts with matches that did not finishing playing, the Gators led on courts two and three and were tied on court six.
“This feels good,” Thornqvist said of his team’s accomplishments. “I thought we were very sharp. We knew we had to be because South Carolina fights really hard. They have great players.”
He was pleased with all the contributions placed forward in the match.
“We were a little rusty yesterday, but today we showed great hunger. We really wanted to play. That goes a long way at the end of the season. I’m very pleased to advance,” he said.
Despite beating the Gamecocks in doubles in 50 minutes, Thornqvist said the next doubles match against Clemson may be more difficult.
“In doubles, we’ll be challenged for sure versus Clemson,” he said. “They’re good at one and two and have a grinder at three, and I think we’re better at four, fix and six. Overall, they’ve got great players and tradition,” he said.
While the remainder of the tournament brings the Gators away from the swamp, Will believes that the California atmosphere will be tolerable for the team.
“I think we’re all very confident,” she said. “We’re all pretty confident playing in front of our home crowd. I thought they helped us a lot this weekend, so it will be a challenge without as many fans there, but we’ll have our family and we’ll have each other and I think we’ll do great.”