AUBURN, Ala. – No. 13 Women's tennis will put its perfect SEC record on the line over the weekend against two top-25 teams on the road. Auburn will face No. 16 Florida on Friday at 4 p.m. CT and No. 19 South Carolina on Sunday at 11 a.m. CT.
"Excited to be undefeated in the SEC and playing a couple of good teams this weekend," said Auburn interim head coach Lester Cook. "Unfortunately, we'll be without Angella Okutoyi because she's traveling to play the African Games. We're going to miss her, but we have a deep team so now it'll be time for someone to step up and fill that void."
The Tigers improved their SEC record to 4-0 on Friday and Sunday with two shutouts over Missouri and No. 50 Arkansas. Auburn won four doubles matches and nine singles matches over the weekend and dropped just one set over both matches.
"We played Florida at ITA Indoors and had a great result, but that was totally different," continued Cook. "It was indoors at a national tournament, but now we're going to be playing them at the Swamp at night. They'll have home court advantage but we do have the confidence that we've already beat them."
Florida, with a 6-7 overall record and a 2-2 record in the SEC, split its most recent matches over the weekend, losing to 10th ranked Georgia on Friday and defeating Tennessee on Sunday at home. Auburn's match against Florida will be a rematch from the ITA National Team Indoor Championships earlier this season, when the Tigers defeated the Gators for just the third time in program history by a 4-0 score.
In February's win, Auburn fifth-year senior Carolyn Ansari defeated No. 79 Carly Briggs, sophomore Angella Okutoyi defeated No. 52 Emily de Oliveira and sophomore DJ Bennett took down Alicia Dudeney. All three singles wins were straight-set victories for the Tigers.
After playing Florida on Friday, Auburn will travel to Columbia to face South Carolina. The Gamecocks currently have an impressive 9-4 overall record, but have lost two of their three conference matches this season. Similar to Florida, South Carolina defeated Tennessee and lost to Georgia on Friday and Sunday.
Two Gamecocks are ranked inside the ITA singles top-10, Ayana Akli at 8th and Sarah Hamner at 10th. Akli, who has played every match at the top of the singles lineup for South Carolina, holds a 19-8 overall record and a 6-4 dual match record this season.
Hamner has a 9-1 dual match record and a 22-6 overall record this season. She and Ariana Arseneault are likely to have a rematch from earlier this season when they faced each other at the South Carolina Invite in January. In that match, Arseneault outlasted Hamner, winning 7-6 (5), 6-4.
Live video and live stats of the Tigers' match against Florida at 4 p.m. CT will be available online at floridagators.com. Live video and live stats when Auburn faces South Carolina on Sunday at 11 a.m. CT will be available online at gamecocksonline.com.