GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The No. 22 UCF women's tennis team earned a season sweep of the No. 21 Florida Gators with a 4-1 victory on Tuesday night, extending the Knights' win streak to five matches.
"Really proud of the team today for coming into a tough environment and coming out with a win," said head coach Bryan Koneicko. "It's never easy playing a team two times. Rebeka played a great match against a great player at number one singles. We played a solid doubles point to help us get the early lead."
Prior to 2021, UCF had only played the Gators once in the last five years. This season, the two sides faced each other twice in 11 days. The Knights earned a 4-3 victory in the front half of the in-season home-and-home with a thrilling three-set victory on court six.
"We obviously have a lot of respect for their program," said Koniecko, "It's an in-state rivalry and we're trying to be the best team in the state; it's always going to be a battle with them. Beating them at their place is a testament to how hard we fought."
Since Koniecko's arrival, the Knights are 3-0 against Florida. The first win over the Gators in the Koniecko era was on College MatchDay back in February of 2019, which sparked the team to go on to win over a dozen consecutive matches. The Black and Gold had never won a match over Florida prior to the College MatchDay victory, making the recent stretch of achievements that much more impressive. Tuesday night was the first time in program history that UCF had won in Gainesville.
The Black and Gold were ready from the start, jumping out to big leads on two of the three doubles courts. No. 60 Ksenia Kuznetsova and Valeriya Zeleva were the first to finish their match, earning a quick 6-2 win over Ida Jarlskog and Sara Dahlstrom on court two. The Gators evened the doubles segment with a win on court one moments later where No. 26 McCartney Kessler and Marlee Zein topped No. 6 Rebeka Stolmar and Marie Mattel. The doubles point came down to court three where Evgeniya Levashova and Nadja Bay Christians were victorious by a count of 6-3 over Amber McGinnis and Sydney Berlin.
The doubles point proved to be important as the first sets were split narrowly in UCF's favor by a count of 4-2.
The Knights struck first in singles as No. 67 Zeleva earned a 6-4, 6-2 win over Zein on court two. Zeleva is a perfect 2-0 at the No. 2 singles position so far as her victory gave the Knights a 2-0 lead on the scoreboard.
Kuznetsova was next to grab a point for the Knights as she recorded a 6-4, 6-1 win over McGinnis on court five giving the Black and Gold a 3-0 edge, needing just one court for the clincher.
Florida tallied their only point of the match on court six, where Berlin beat Nandini Sharma 6-4, 6-1.
It was UCF's captain No. 42 Stolmar who sealed the season sweep of Florida as she toppled No. 32 Kessler 7-5, 6-2 at the top singles spot. She improves to 5-2 on the season and 2-0 at No. 1 singles as she picked up her first win over a ranked opponent in 2021.
The Knights' clinching point in both victories against Florida were via double faults.
UCF officially set a new record tonight for consecutive points scored. The Knights earned 25 straight dual match points, shattering the team's previous best of 19 in a row set in 2019. The Black and Gold started their streak with the match clinching point against Florida on Jan. 29 and then went on to collect three straight 7-0 decisions. They then earned the first three points of Tuesday night's match, bringing them to their new personal best.
UP NEXT
The Knights will face another in-state foe this weekend as they host Miami on Saturday at noon. The Hurricanes come into the match with a record of 2-1 with wins over No. 23 Ole Miss and FAU.
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