COLUMBIA, S.C. – After two home shutout wins on Saturday, No. 18 men's tennis looks to pick up two more wins on the road at No. 4 South Carolina and No. 22 Florida. The Tigers will face No. 4 South Carolina at 4 p.m. CT on Friday and will travel south to battle No. 22 Florida at 11 a.m. CT on Sunday.
"We're going against a team that is No. 4 in the country and has had a lot of success in the early part of their year," Auburn head coach Bobby Reynolds said about the Gamecocks. "For two reasons, they're going to be ready for this match. One, because we beat them in the conference tournament last year in Athens. Two, they just came off a loss on the road to Mississippi State, so you know when you have a setback, the emotion and fight comes into the next match. With South Carolina, their roster and ours have grown together. Over the last three years, they've gotten better and we've gotten a lot better."
Auburn freshman Alejandro Moreno's name was listed in the latest ITA singles rankings that were released on Tuesday for the first time, as he is now ranked 107th in the country. Moreno defeated Kentukcy's Joshua Lapadat, who was ranked 47th in singles, as well as Ole Miss' Noah Schlagenhauf over the weekend.
Raul Dobai also picked up two impressive singles victories for Auburn over Isac Stromberg of Ole Miss and Sam Bajracharya of Alabama State on Saturday. Dobai is now tied for the most dual singles victories on the Auburn team this season with 10.
South Carolina comes into Friday's match with a 15-2 record and a 4-1 conference record. Last weekend, the Gamecocks defeated LSU 4-3, then suffered their first SEC loss to No. 14 Mississippi State 5-2.
The team has four singles players and two doubles teams ranked by the ITA. Toby Samuel and Connor Thompson are both ranked as top-10 singles players at No. 3 and No. 8, respectively. Samuel, who typically plays at the top of the South Carolina singles lineup, has a 19-3 overall singles record this season and a 14-2 dual singles record. The Bournemouth, England native has also been named the SEC player of the week each of the past two weeks.
Samuel and Thompson are currently ranked by the ITA as the best doubles team in the nation. The South Carolina duo hold an impressive 18-1 record this season and an 11-1 record in dual matches.
"Looking toward the Florida match, it's a little bit different than years past," Coach Reynolds said about the Gators. "Since I've been head coach, we've never beaten Florida, and now we're ranked ahead of them. We don't need to play for the name on the front of the jersey, but the individual players from one to six. We've seen a lot of their guys in the fall and had success against them individually."
At the Florida Fall Invite in November, Auburn doubles teams picked up three victories over Florida doubles teams and Jan Galka recorded a singles victory over Florida's Lukas Greif as well.
Currently, the No. 22 Gators are just above .500 with an 8-7 overall record and a 3-2 record in the SEC. They are coming off back-to-back road wins over Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.
True freshman Jonah Braswell leads the team in both overall and dual singles wins with 23 and eight, respectively. Graduate student Axel Nefve, who transferred to the team from Notre Dame before this season, has been in the top spot of Florida's singles lineup for every match this season. Nefve, who is ranked 70th in singles, has a 14-10 overall singles record and a 6-8 dual singles record.
Auburn's match against South Carolina is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. CT at the Carolina Tennis Center. Live video and live scoring of the match will be available at gamecocksonline.com.
The Tigers' second match of the weekend will be at 11 a.m. CT on Sunday against Florida. Live video and live scoring from the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex will be available at floridagators.com.