In a big day for Florida Gators tennis, the men’s doubles team of junior Alexandre Lacroix and redshirt senior Antoine Benneteau won the Wilson/ITA Southeast Regional Championship Monday, defeating the Florida State Seminoles team of Connor Smith and Vahid Mirzadeh 8-2 at the Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, GA.
Almost simultaneously, Florida freshman Allie Will won the singles title in the women’s Wilson/ITA Southeast Region Championships at the Bill More Tennis Center in Atlanta, GA. Will first had to defeat the Miami Hurricanes‘ Laura Vallverdu (ranked No. 2 in the tournament and No. 6 in the nation) 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, before meeting FSU’s Noemie Scharle in the finals. Scharle was the event’s No. 4 seed and ranked No. 24 in the country, but still lost to Will 6-4, 6-0.
Both Lacroix/Benneteau and Will earned spots at the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships. This event is considered to be the second leg of the collegiate Grand Slam and will be held on Nov. 5-8 at Yale University and the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center in West Haven, CT, respectively.