Jubb Grabs Record 16th Ranked Win; Gamecocks Fall at No. 3 Florida
GAINESVILLE, Fla.– Ninth-ranked Paul Jubb earned his Carolina school record 16th win of the season against the ITA’s top-125 singles players on Sunday, the lone bright spot for South Carolina men’s tennis (15-8, 5-7 SEC), which fell short in a 6-1 loss on the road against third-ranked Florida (20-2, 12-0 SEC) at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.
Jubb has now won nine-consecutive singles matches and finishes the regular-season with an 11-1 SEC record, setting program-best marks for wins (11) and win percentage (.917).
Having played out of the Gamecocks’ No. 1 singles spot since the tail end of last season, Jubb is currently first in Carolina history in career win percentage against ranked opponents (.657), first in career SEC win percentage at 27-5 (.844) and first in dual-match winning percentage with a record of 46-9 (.836).
The Gators controlled each of the three doubles courts from beginning to end, winning 6-1 at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots to take the team point. Florida would go on to clinch the team win a 4-0 before Jubb put Carolina on the board with a second-set tiebreak victory to defeat over No. 11 Oliver Crawford.
Jubb fell behind 4-1 in the opening set before going on an impressive run to take the first set 6-4. The Gamecocks’ junior missed an opportunity to close out the match as a 5-3 lead in the second was wiped away with Crawford forcing a tiebreaker. Jubb fell behind 6-2 in the tiebreak before holding serve to close the gap to 6-5. Jubb went on win the breaker 8-6, improving to 29-3 (.906) overall on the season.
The Gamecocks finish the SEC season as the No. 6 seed in next week’s conference tournament, finising on top of a four-way tie for sixth-place in the conference standings as Kentucky, Ole Miss and Alabama each finished their respective schedules with five conference wins. South Carolina and Kentucky emerge from the first tiebreak with 2-1 records against the aforementioned group with Carolina’s win over Ole Miss (each team plays each other once) being the ultimate separator for the sixth seed.
Sixth-seeded South Carolina will now face 11th-seeded LSU on Thursday beginning at 9 a.m. ET, at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.
SINGLES RESULTS:
1. No. 9 Paul Jubb (SC) def. No. 11 Oliver Crawford (UF) 6-4, 7-6 (8-6)
2. No. 47 Sam Riffice (UF) def. No. 92 Daniel Rodrigues (SC) 6-3, 6-2
3. No. 38 Andres Andrade (UF) def. Raphael Lambling (SC) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4
4. No. 108 Johannes Ingildsen (UF) def. Beau Pelletier (SC) 6-3, 7-5
5. Alfredo Perez (UF) def. Thomas Brown (SC) 2-6, 6-0, 6-1
6. McClain Kessler (UF) def. Yancy Dennis (SC) 6-4, 6-3
Order of finish: 2,6,4*,1,5,3
DOUBLES RESULTS:
1. Alfredo Perez/Oliver Crawford (UF) vs. No. 77 Raphael Lambling/Daniel Rodrigues (SC) 4-1, unfinished
2. McClain Kessler/Johannes Ingildsen (UF) def. Paul Jubb/Yancy Dennis (SC) 6-1
3. Andres Andrade/Duarte Vale (UF) def. Beau Pelletier/Jake Beasley (SC) 6-1
Order of finish: 2,3
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