Auburn University’s women’s tennis team, ranked No. 13 nationally, secured a 5-2 victory over Florida in its Southeastern Conference opener on Saturday. The match took place at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex in Gainesville, marking only the fifth time Auburn has defeated the Gators, who have won seven national championships.
“Good win for the girls,” said Auburn head coach Jordan Szabo. “Florida is a seven-time national championship program, and to win 5-2 on the road in our first outdoor match in a while is really impressive. We’re looking for six players to come out and play their best tennis, and I don’t think we’ve done that yet this year, but this is a really good start to the SEC schedule at a really difficult place to play against a historic program and a legendary coach like Per Nilsson.
“It was really cool for DJ (Bennett) to clinch the doubles point and the match against Florida after they didn’t recruit her. She grew up 30 minutes from here, so she had a big contingent of fans, and it was really special for her to clinch here in her senior year against a team she wanted to play for growing up.”
In doubles competition, Ekaterina Khairutdinova and Ashton Bowers recorded their 13th straight win together with a 6-3 result at No. 3 doubles. DJ Bennett and Ava Esposito then secured the doubles point by defeating Florida’s Xinyi Nong and Nikola Daubnerova—ranked No. 23 nationally—by another 6-3 score.
Ava Esposito contributed early singles points for Auburn with a comeback win at No. 6 singles, overcoming an initial deficit to take her match 6-3, 6-0 over Xinyi Nong of Florida.
Florida responded by winning matches at both No. 4 and No. 3 singles positions, leveling the overall score at two apiece.
Ashton Bowers gave Auburn back the lead by earning her twentieth singles win of the season with a straight-set victory over Lucie Pawlak (6-4, 6-4).
On court one, DJ Bennett built an early advantage against Valery Gynina (ranked No. 54), eventually sealing both her match (6-3, 6-3) and Auburn’s overall victory.
Afterward, Khairutdinova added another singles point for Auburn with a win at No. 2 singles position as Auburn closed out the day with five total points.
With this result, Auburn improves its season record to 16 wins against one loss overall and begins conference play with a victory; all four of its road matches so far have ended in wins as well. Next on its schedule is an away fixture versus seventh-ranked Oklahoma at Headington Family Tennis Center.
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