By Paige Mullen

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The UK men’s tennis team lost to No.17 Florida 4-1 on Friday afternoon at the Hillary Boone Tennis Complex in Lexington.  This was the Cats’ second straight loss in SEC play after they lost to Ole Miss last Saturday.

The Cats began the day strong, winning the doubles point to start out the match. Sophomores Jerry Lopez and Nils Ellefsen gave UK a 6-4 win on court two. On court three, UK’s freshman pair William Bushamuka and Trey Yates secured a 7-5 doubles win in order to give the team a 1-0 lead over the Gators going into the singles.

UK won two first-set matches with Bushamuka on court three and Ellefsen on court five. On court one, junior Beck Pennington started out with a close match against Florida sophomore Diego Hidalgo, but was unable to close it out, losing 7-6 in first set and 6-3 in the second. The Gators took singles wins on court two, four, and six in straight sets as well to close the match and clinch the overall victory.

Cats head coach Cedric Kauffmann was very disappointed with his team’s loss on Friday.

“I’d say it was embarrassing. Winning the doubles and winning three singles in two sets each with the score in the second set being weaker, I just think that’s embarrassing,” Kauffmann said.

UK will try to regroup before they play Auburn on Sunday to end the regular season before heading out to College Station, Texas, next week for the SEC tournament.

Pennington said that although the season has been tough (the loss puts UK at 11-15 on the year), the team will continue to look ahead.

“I think since we lost today we don’t make the NCAA’s, but the Auburn match is really important for us. It still gives us a bye in the SEC tournament,” Pennington said. “So we are just going to have to bounce back, have a good practice tomorrow and just see how we play.”

Sunday’s match will begin at 1 p.m.