Florida women’s tennis advances to third-straight NCAA Final Four with 4-0 sweep of Miami

By Adam Silverstein
May 19, 2012

No. 2 Florida Gators women’s tennis defeated the No. 11 Miami Hurricanes 4-0 in the Elite Eight round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament on Saturday to advance to the Final Four for the third-straight season and 22nd time in program history.

Florida (25-1) extended their winning streak to 20 matches as they beat Miami (21-5) in the NCAA Tournament for the third year in a row, moving on to the Final Four following each victory. The Gators have not allowed any of their opponents to register a single point in this year’s event, improving to 18-0 after previously sweeping South Carolina State (4-0), No. 31 Washington State (6-0) and No. 16 Michigan (4-0).

The No. 22 duo of junior Lauren Embree and senior Joanna Mather lost their doubles match 8-4, but Florida’s other pairings – No. 1 junior Allie Will/sophomore Sofie Oyen (8-3) and sophomore Alex Cercone/junior Caroline Hitimana (8-6) – pulled off victories to clinch the doubles point for the Gators.

It took Cercone/Hitimana 1:46 to cap the point for UF as the duo needed 18 points to win the second-to-last game of their match and take a 7-6 lead.

Once the doubles point was out of the way, Florida cruised in singles competition.

No. 79 Cercone (6-2, 6-2), sophomore Olivia Janowicz (6-3, 6-2) and No. 21 Mather (6-2, 6-4) each won their matches in straight sets to send the Gators to a 4-0 victory. No. 1 Will (6-3, 4-2), No. 9 Embree (7-6[2], 1-3) and No. 61 Oyen (6-3, 5-3) were all leading but did not finish their respective matches.

Florida moves on to face No. 3 Duke, riding an 18-match winning streak of their own, in Final Four action on Monday at 1 p.m. The winner will take on either No. 1 UCLA or No. 5 USC for the national title on Tuesday at 1 p.m.

2 Comments

  1. SaraGator says:

    Wow, Stanford isn’t in???

    Go, Lady Gators!

  2. gatorgrad79 says:

    Woohoo! Go Lady Gators – Tennis, Lacrosse, and Softball!

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