The scoreboard showed a 7-0 victory Saturday night for the Illinois men’s tennis team, but the match against Florida was much closer than the score indicated.

“I’m very proud of the guys’ effort, for us to beat a team like that,” said Illinois head coach Craig Tiley. “The guys really stepped it up. It was a good, solid, fair college match.”

Illinois clinched the doubles point to start with a one-point lead, but from there, the night took a twist the Illini are not used to. Illinois freshman Ryan Rowe won his match in the third set 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 against Florida’s Ryan Sherry. Freshman Monte Tucker won in a super tiebreaker over Nestor Briceno – 6-7 (3), 7-6 (5), 10-8; and sophomore GD Jones won in a third set tiebreaker against Hamid Mirzadeh 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Mirzadeh, who entered the spring season unranked, took the fall off to compete as an amateur in professional tournaments. Mirzadeh competed at the Northwestern Mutual/ Wright Financial Group United States Tennis Association Challenger held at the Atkins Tennis Center in November. Illinois senior Chris Martin defeated Mirzadeh at that event. Jones said being able to watch Martin compete against Mirzadeh was to his advantage.

“(Mirzadeh) played really well in the first set,” Jones said. “Toward the middle of the second set I started to get control, and it was nice to finish it off in the end.”

Although Jones’ victory was impressive, it was freshman Ruben Gonzales who sealed the victory for the Illini. Gonzales beat Jordan Dolberg 6-4, 7-6 (5) to win the fourth point for the Illini.

“Every match could have gone either way, so it was good to get the win,” said Gonzales, who said he did not realize he had clinched the match until about 20 minutes after he finished playing. “It was pretty good (to clinch), but it could have been any of us. We were all around the same score.”

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the men’s win was not the fact that they won their matches, but the way the team responded to the pressure of facing a higher-ranked team. The Illini have not beaten a team ranked higher than them since 2002 when the then-No. 6 Illini beat then-No. 1 Georgia at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) National Indoor Team Championships.

“A couple of us showed some great guts out there, including Monte and GD,” said Illinois junior Ryler DeHeart. “It’s huge going in (to the ITA National Indoor Team Championships), obviously Florida is going to be one of the top teams going in.”

Illinois will compete at the ITA National Indoor Team Championships in Chicago on Thursday. However, the four-day Chicago tournament will be the last home event for the men until April 3. With Saturday night’s win, the Illini have won their last 37 matches at home.

“We’re here to win a national championship, and we don’t want too many roadblocks along the way,” Jones said. “Losing at home is something that we don’t consider to be acceptable.”

One roadblock the Illini have already overcome is some of their injuries that had plagued the team. Illinois junior Pramod Dabir returned to the line-up Saturday for doubles competition after spraining his ankle against Florida State on Jan. 28. Dabir, who was not expected to return so soon, joined senior Evan Zeder to defeat Florida’s Dolberg and Sherry, 9-7.

“He healed amazingly fast, which is part of his character,” DeHeart, Dabir’s roommate, said. “He does everything pretty fast … that was great to see and I think he’ll be back to his old self pretty soon.”

But Tiley said the challenges the Illini will face in the upcoming week will be their toughest test to date, but Saturday’s win should help the team build its confidence for the ITA National Indoor Team Championships, where the Illini will compete against 16 of the top teams in the country.

“We’ve got a lot of things that we’ve got to get done, but if these guys make the individual improvements that we expect of them, I think that they’re going to be a great team by the end of the year,” Tiley said. “We’re better than I thought we would be at this time of the year.”