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On a memorable and historic night, the UCF Knights Women’s Tennis hosted the Florida Gators on College MatchDay on March 25, 2019. The match was nationally televised on the Tennis Channel and brought over 1,200 spectators to the USTA National Campus.
The match would be back and forth between the two teams and would come down to Court 6 between UCF’s Nandini Sharma and Florida’s Anastasia Kharitonov in a duel that went to three sets.
Kharitonov took the first set 6-4 while Sharma claimed set two 6-3. With set three deciding the match, Sharma went up early 2-1. Kharitonov battled back to eventually take a 4-3 lead. Sharma fought hard to try and re-gain the advantage, but saw Kharitonov take a 5-4 lead. Sharma didn’t let this get to her though as she came back in the tenth game with authority and rode the momentum to a 7-5 victory.
The win was the 7th in a row overall for the Knights who came in ranked 30th but was their first-ever win over the Gators. It would prove to be only the beginning of a lot of firsts for the program in 2019.