Georgia Tennis Sinks Vandy on a Windy Friday Afternoon
The Georgia tennis team downed Vanderbilt Friday in a match that featured two elite match ups.
The nations number five ranked Georgia Bulldog tennis team (16-2, 8-0 SEC) accepted a challenge from the nation’s number 17 ranked Vanderbilt Commodores Friday afternoon. The competition was fierce up and down the Dan Magill Tennis Complex courts, but the most compelling matches of the day took place on court one.
First, the Bulldogs’ number one ranked doubles team of Austin Smith and Ben Wagland battled Vanderbilt’s number four ranked Vandy team of Gonzalez Austin and Rhys Johnson. The play was not only spirited and intense, but superb on both sides of the net. Both pairs gave as good as they got with the match ending incomplete and on serve when Georgia clinched the double point on court two. Following the doubles exhibition, Georgia’s 28 ranked Montgomery and number seven ranked Austin each broke the other and the match ended incomplete with each player taking a set before Georgia clinched the match
Today’s singles match up between Montgomery and Austin on court one was a rematch of the last July’s Tennessee Valley Open Championship. In the Tennessee Open Final, the second-seeded Montgomery defeated number one seed Gonzalez Austin.
The fifth-ranked Bulldogs remain perfect in the SEC with the 4-1 win. The Bulldogs have now won 10 consecutive matches, sixth against a top 20 opponents.
“We faced windy conditions today, but I told the guys coming in that it was an equalizer and we needed to be tough,” said Georgia coach Manuel Diaz to Georgiadogs.com. “I thought we did a super job out there. We played great doubles, especially at No. 3, and it was wonderful to see our No. 2 team clinch for us. The singles matches were all competitive, and I’m proud of the effort everywhere.”
Georgia won the doubles point for the 12th time this season to take a 1-0 lead. Eric Diaz and Nathan Pasha clinched the point with a break point over the number 71 ranked pair of Pen Binet and Baker Newman on court two, 6-3.
The Bulldogs clinched the match at number 5 singles when Nick Wood defeated Suresh Eswaran 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over Eswaran.
Said Diaz again to Georgiadogs.com, “Austin gave us a quick point, and Paul gave us the third point to set up Nick, who lost the first set and turned that around in such a quick manner. He won the second set and got ahead 3-0 in no time, and that was tremendous and showed a lot of composure, tenacity and maturity on his part. He went on to clinch and now we’ll have a day or two off before we get ready for a big road trip next week.”