Sometimes, all you need is a little revenge — especially against a heated rival — and there’s been no better rivalry on campus recently than the Stanford women’s tennis team and the Florida Gators.
No. 2 Stanford (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) had the opportunity to play top-ranked Florida (5-1, 0-0 SEC) this past Sunday, trying to erase last year’s heartbreaking loss in the NCAA finals against the same team — and the Cardinal did just what it set out to do, coming away with a dominant 5-2 win and momentum for the rest of the season.
The Stanford-Florida rivalry has been heating up recently. In 2010, then-freshman Mallory Burdette clinched Stanford’s 16th national championship with a 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-5 victory and a 4-3 overall win against the Gators. In early 2011, Stanford was still on top when the two teams met in the finals of the National Team Indoors Championships in February. Stanford won, 4-2, with Stacey Tan clinching the match. But Florida finally gained the advantage when, in the finals of the 2011 NCAA tournament, Burdette found herself on the losing side of the clinching match, a 4-3 loss that handed the Gators the title.
It makes sense then that fans of the team closely watched Burdette’s match Sunday as she again faced off against Lauren Embree of the Gators. Clearly coming out with extra motivation, Burdette dominated her opponent from start to end, coming away with a 6-1, 6-2 victory. A vocal home crowd and Burdette’s own control of the points gave her the win.
“Honestly, I don’t think I had beaten her since I was 14 years old on clay courts way back in the day,” Burdette said. “I’ve put in a lot of work on my finishing shots, my overheads, my volleys and just being more aggressive in general, and I think she didn’t really have anything to hurt me today. It was just a matter of me executing.”
Sunday’s match was important for sophomore Kristie Ahn as well, as it was her first singles match back after a prolonged absence due to injury. Ahn struggled in the first set, but turned it around in the second. In the third-set tiebreaker, Ahn ran away with the first four points and eventually won 10-4.
“I thought it was going to be great at first, but it actually turned out to be really emotional in so many ways,” Ahn said about her return to action. “It was remarkable though. My game has a lot to improve on, but just in terms of mentality, it’s still there. Just remembering that I’m playing for my team, not just for myself — that was important.”
Senior Veronica Li had another great showing, putting Stanford one point from the win with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Olivia Janowicz. On the next court over, freshman Ellen Tsay lost in a third set tiebreaker 6-2, 4-6, 0-1 (1) after appearing dominant early on. The last match off was sophomore Nicole Gibbs, who lost a fight to Allie Wills 4-6, 6-2, 4-6.
The clincher of the day came from Tan, playing at the third position. Tan stole the first set from Joanna Mather in a tiebreaker, 7-6 (5), before cruising to a 5-0 advantage in the second. Mather orchestrated a minor comeback to 5-3 before Tan won her match and won the day for Stanford, 7-6, 6-3.
Burdette said the Cardinal were particularly pleased by its sweep of all three doubles matches and en route to claiming the ever-important first point.
“Doubles has always been difficult for us against the Gators,” Burdette explained. “For us to go out there and win all three matches, [the coaches] were really happy. Doubles, volleys and overheads — that’s what we’ve been working on throughout the fall.”
Burdette said the Cardinal was taking away a ton of confidence from a big win over the nation’s number one team, but it wasn’t about to start coasting now that it extracted its revenge on the Gators.
“This year, we have a lot of other schools to worry about as well as the Gators,” Burdette said. “USC and UCLA are really tough. They’ll be great competition for us. We’re taking a lot of confidence from this one, but we still have a lot more tennis to play this season.”