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Monday, January 29, 2007

Win gives UF's Levine a reason to skip class:: Florida Sun-Sentinel


Jesse Levine is on Florida's roster and attending classes, but he may not make the Gators first dual match Wednesday night. This story details his success in the qualifying rounds at the ATP Delray Beach International Tennis Championships, and in the convoluted format that they are experimenting with there (can you tell I'm not a fan?), I think he's advanced to the round robin portion of the competition.

According to this ATP website story, both Levine and Sam Querrey have gotten through the "main draw elimination" phase of the event, and will join the likes of James Blake and Tommy Haas in round robin play. Querrey absolutely crushed Konstantinos Economidis of Greece, losing only two games, while Levine had little difficulty with Poland's Lukasz Kubot. Levine's 6-3, 6-2 victory was his first win at the ATP level.

Andy Jackson spoke to the media in his weekly press conference, but no one asked him how Levine's wins might affect the likelihood of his remaining in school. The fact that the Gators were given the top spot among all the 2007 recruiting classes didn't figure in the conversation either. Jackson certainly can't be happy about the Delray tournament's website referring to Levine as the "former University of Florida star." Ouch.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I also see in that Sun S. article that Ryan Sweeting is still on the team at Florida!

Why don't you take part in the weekly conference?

Anonymous said...

Wow,wierd format, congrats to Levine. I couldn't tell, was Sweeting somewhere in that draw, or qualis?
What I got from the press conference was that losing 6 guys is huge and and last year was a big disappointment. It sounds like this is a rebuilding year, not a word about the recruiting class, tho.
Jackson is very low key and certainly playing down Levine I think. Snakebit maybe.

Colette Lewis said...

Sweeting advanced to the round robin segment when he defeated Mike Russell Tuesday. Russell retired at 2-2 in the second set after losing the first in a tiebreak.

Anonymous said...

Levine just beat Kevin Kim 6-2, 6-2. He plays Benjamin Becker for a berth to the quarterfinals.

Levine has won four straight matches, all in straight sets. If he goes to Florida, they're getting a good one.

Anonymous said...

hey colette I just saw that tennisrecruiting.net ranked the men's recruiting class, who do you feel is the second best class in the nation. There are some good ones with Duke, Texas, Virginia, Michigan and Stanford.

Colette Lewis said...

My top five was the same as the overall results.

Anonymous said...

Can anybody figure out what Levine's ranking will be with these results. Guys...he'll be at Florida when he's done, what don't you get? Fall of '07 could be a different story.

Anonymous said...

Levine should have a ranking of about 425.

Anonymous said...

levine is going to be in the high 300's now i think, he played amazing in delray!! wonder how long he will stay in school but hes on the front page of atptennis.com!! thats pretty big for any college player

Anonymous said...

Becker beat Levine 3 & 3 today, so his tournament run is done, but he can't be too disappointed with the way he played. Wonder if he'll return to Gainesville in time for the match with Furman tomorrow? He definitely should be back for Baylor on Sunday. The Gators opened their season yesterday and beat UCF 5-2, but adding Levine makes them a very good team. Underrated if you ask me, cause their top 3 of Levine, Oullette and Briceno are very good. If they consistently win the doubles point, they can be tough to beat.

Anonymous said...

Successful collegiate debut for Levine. Teams with Oulette at #1 doubles to win 8-3, then wins at 1 singles, 2 & 2. Big test for Florida on Sunday when they host Baylor.

Anonymous said...

It shouldn't be a test, UF doesn't have the depth yet with the freshman...prediction 4-3 Baylor.

Anonymous said...

Looks like Florida is pretty good. They win the doubles point, then take the top 3 singles in straight sets, Levine and Oullette winning easily, Briceno won the 1st set easy, before securing the team match 7-5 in the 2nd. Baylor won the bottom 3 matches, the final match was settled in a 10 point tiebreaker since the team match had already been decided. 4-3 Gators upset #2 Baylor. Levine has been impressive, winning his 2 doubles matches and dominating both singles.

Anonymous said...

Levine just was awarded SEC player of the week, that was fast. He is only the 2nd freshman in the history UF to do so. He is making his mark already!! I saw the article on gatorzone.com.