Georgia Tennis Teams Advance to National Indoor Finals
The Georgia tennis teams advanced to the ITA indoor finals with 4-0 victories at the Lindsey Hopkins Indoor Facility.
The Georgia Men’s and Women’s tennis teams rolled through the ITA Regional qualifying tournament this past weekend at the Lindsey Hopkins Indoor Facility to advance to the ITA National Indoor event.
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The eighth ranked Georgia men’s tennis team advanced past Utah with a 4-0 victory over Utah Sunday afternoon. The Dawgs will compete with 15 other teams in the National Indoors Feb. 13-16 in Chicago.
“We knew we needed to be a little bit sharper today than we were on Friday, and I think our guys played well,” Georgia coach Manuel Diaz told Georgiadogs.com. “I think we played better than we did against Michigan State. Utah was a very competitive team. We played a little bit better doubles than on Friday, and I think we’re still not quite where we need to be, but we seem to be playing sharp in singles and we got the job done.”
Georgia won two out of three doubles matches to take a 1-0 lead. Nathan Pasha and Nick Wood defeated Johan Jonhagen and Santiago Sierra, 6-2, then Utah (1-1) answered with a 6-3 win at No. 2, but the 16th-ranked Bulldog duo of Paul Oosterbaan and Ben Wagland clinched the point with a 7-5 win at No. 1.
Freshman Wayne Montgomery won his team-leading 19th match of the season at No. 3, 6-0, 6-1 over Matt Cowley to extend the lead to 2-0, then Nick Wood made it 3-0 with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Freddie McGeehan at No. 4. Austin Smith furnished the clincher with a 6-3, 6-4 win at No. 2.
Georgia has now won 26 consecutive regular season home matches dating back to 2012.
Georgia will be back in action next weekend when it plays host to the SEC/Pac-12 Showdown for the first time. On Saturday, 13th-ranked Florida will take on No. 1 USC at 10 a.m., while Georgia will face No. 4 UCLA at 2 p.m. Sunday’s schedule features Florida-UCLA at 10:00 and Georgia-USC at 2:00 p.m. All matches will be played indoors.
The tenth-ranked Georgia women’s tennis team (2-1) cruised past Auburn 4-0 to qualify for the National Indoor Team Championships hosted by Virginia February 6-9.
The match was highlighted by senior Lauren Herring and freshman Ellen Perez’s 6-4 doubles win over the nation’s No. 3 ranked tandem of Pleun Burgmans and Emily Flickinger on court one. The win allowed the Bulldogs to clinch the doubles point after freshman Hannah King and sophomore Caroline Brinson had won 6-3 on court three just moments prior.
“I thought we played a great match today,” said head coach Jeff Wallace told Georgiadogs.com. I thought Auburn played a really good match as well. I really liked how we came back in doubles from our last match [Samford]. I thought we played strong on all three courts, so that was exciting to see us get off to that type of a start and get that doubles point. I also thought Lauren played an excellent match in singles today. She was really focused and determined and pumped up all the way through. That’s what we always want our number one player, and all of our players, to look like. She did a great job getting that second point.”
The No. 19 ranked Herring was equally impressive in singles play as she swept No. 36 Burgmans 6-1, 6-3 in straight sets to give the Bulldogs a 2-0 overall lead. Perez won the third set of her match 6-3 and gave Georgia a 3-0 lead. Just moments later, junior Silvia Garcia won her third set 6-2 to clinch the match for the Bulldogs at 4-0.
“We’ve got some huge opportunities on the road coming up over the next two weeks,” said Wallace. “I feel like if we continue to play like we did tonight then we will have some great results.”