Gator Women's Tennis plays for the National Championship today

by mlmintampa on May 25, 2010 12:00 AM EDT in Florida Sports Grab Bag

While basketball attempted to right the ship, Tim Tebow spun his tall tales to Denver and baseball and softball climbed the rankings, the Gator Women's Tennis team was outperforming all of them. Today, the Gators have a chance to bring another championship to Gainesville as they play powerhouse Stanford at 2pm in Athens, Ga.

The Gators (29-2) have lost only five points since the start of April. To get to today's match against Stanford (25-1), UF swept UNC Monday, 4-0. [Tennis has nine matches; three doubles, six singles. First to four "points" wins. Two doubles matches count as a point and each of the six singles matches count as a point. Singles matches are made by pairing the No. 1 players, No. 2s and so on. Florida has been very good at doubles, which is a huge advantage to only have to win 3 of 6 singles matches.]

Florida has not lost since the indoor championships in February, where UF historically struggles since they are not used to indoor courts. Since then, they have ran the table in the SEC, going through the regular season and tournament undefeated. For the Gators to have gotten this far, they had to be deep. No. 1 Lauren Embree has spent the entire season on the top court, going 18-3. But at No. 6, UF is 21-3, using four players to rotate on the court. Dominant college teams are not defined by their No. 1 player, but by the 2-6 spots. At No. 2, freshman Allie Will is 24-0. To put in terms that might make more sense, Embree and Will are like the Phillies if they had kept Cliff Lee with Roy Halladay. You can't win 4 of 7 when there are two lock down players in the rotation. Add UF's doubles play, and Stanford will have to reach into their history of great tennis to defeat the Gators.

Stanford has won 15 national championships, but none since 2006. In 2003, Florida defeated Stanford for their last title, UF's fourth title. In 2002, Stanford defeated UF.

If you are thinking to yourself, "Why are we talkin' about tennis! Nimrod Tishman's leavin' skool!" Trust me, women's tennis means a lot more than a crappy ass basketball player. And this impacts the greater good of the University of Florida. You see, Florida wins the SEC All-Sports Championship almost every season. But we have only finished second twice for the National All-Sports Championship. Who wins that every year? Stanford. Who is leading right now as UF sits in fourth? Stanford. UF has women's softball and baseball alive, but the Gators' lack of success in small sports and lack of small sports (Stanford has 31 varsity sports, UF has 19) always keeps them behind the Pac-10 power. Maybe, just maybe, if women's tennis wins a National Championship, Florida can finally win the All-Sports Crown. And you'll have a reason to care.

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Thanks

Thanks mlm for explaining the whacked out scoring system used in college tennis. I was watching the semifinals scoring live yesterday and it was confusing the hell out of me. I kept thinking “how in the hell can 4 points be a win when there are nine matches?!?!” I think I got it now.

As for the Sears Director’s Cup (It will always be the Sears Directors Cup to me !), I think we have a great shot to score our highest finish ever. Womens hoops really killed us by not making the tourney. The scoring is a little wacky in those standings, but basically, everything is based on the NCAA tourney finish, so just making the tournament nets you 25 points. We need our womens tennis, softball and baseball to finish strong! It will be tough for the Gators to ever win the thing because we only participate in 17 sports (since the addition of gymnastics). The Director’s Cup counts 20 sports – 10 men and 10 womens. Stanford gets some cheap points in sports like fencing, where not many schools particiapte, so it’s easier to finish high. I think if UF started a womens bowling team, we would be able to catch Stanford. Lacrosse team will be good soon – they finished 10-8 in their inaugural season with 24 freshmen and 5 upperclassmen. That has the makings of a great team in a year or two.

You can watch live scoring for today’s tennis match at georgiadogs.com. I think this link will work.

Go Gators.

by skigator93 on May 25, 2010 10:22 AM EDT reply actions

Stanford has two sports that UF could add tomorrow and be national contenders in; men’s soccer and wrestling. There is a lot of good wrestling in Florida (Brandon High School holds the all-time winning streak) and high school soccer is very competitive.
The problem is Title IX requirements and the ratio of men to women at UF and other colleges. Women, for several years, have been outperforming men in terms of attending and graduating college. UF and a lot of other big time schools are having problems keeping anything close to 55/45 female/male ratio. (UNC had a NY Times story about their female students upset with the lack of men on campus. And they were cute females too.) If the ratio of women keeps rising, UF will have to add women’s sports or subtract men’s sports. The only other option would be to get donors to fund men’s teams, which would keep UF from violating federal and NCAA rules.

mlmintampa
UF C/O 06
http://www.alligatorarmy.com

by mlmintampa on May 25, 2010 11:35 AM EDT up reply actions

understood

But I can’t imagine it would be too costly to add a womens bowling team…Vandy won their first ever national championship in womens bowling a couple years ago (hard to believe, isn’t it?). That would help keep the necessary ratio of athletics teams.

I will also say that the womens sports teams at UF do nothing to hold us back though – they typically outpace the men in national rankings. I really want our softball team to win it this season. They have been so close the past two years. I also think you will see UF’s first ever gymnastics national title next year – Coach Faehn has built a sleeping giant and while this year’s team was surely disappointed with their 5th place national finish, their top two gymansts were both true freshmen…..

I am still holding out hopes for baseball and track too!

by skigator93 on May 25, 2010 12:21 PM EDT up reply actions

The top two women’s tennis players are freshmen too. Also, I covered women’s tennis while I was at UF. It’s surprisingly fun. 3 doubles matches happen at the same time and they are perfectly happy with slamming a return at the forward player. (Former UF player Jen Magley did this all the time for intimidation.) Singles is six matches at once and you can cheer. Really enjoyable. Men’s tennis is too, but less exciting in doubles.

mlmintampa
UF C/O 06
http://www.alligatorarmy.com

by mlmintampa on May 25, 2010 12:52 PM EDT up reply actions