March 12, 2012
ATLANTA – Looking to capture its first Atlantic Coast Conference win of the spring, Georgia Tech hosts Miami in a 2:30 p.m. match Tuesday at the Bill Moore Tennis Center. Admission is free and parking is available along Fowler Street.
The Yellow Jackets (5-7, 0-2 ACC) are coming off a 4-3 home court loss, despite sweeping all three doubles matches, to Clemson on March 4. The Hurricanes (6-4, 0-2 ACC), come to Atlanta following a 6-1 loss at Clemson Sunday, and both teams have a loss to Florida State as week this spring.
“Miami is a good team, as are all the teams in the ACC, so we need to establish ourselves in a positive way starting tomorrow,” said head coach Kenny Thorne. ” We had a tough match against them at their place last year so we are excited about being able to play them at home this year. We had some good practices this past week and our team is getting better. Looking forward to building on our doubles success from last match and seeing our guys step up in singles.”
All-American Kevin King, the nation’s 13th-ranked player in singles, has played well this spring at the top singles position in the Tech lineup, building a 10-2 record with his only losses coming to the nation’s 2nd and 10th-ranked players. The senior from Peachtree City, Ga., has victories over the 34th and 125th-ranked players in the nation.
Juan Spir, a junior from Medellin, Colombia, ranked No. 101 and playing No. 2 for Tech, has a 7-5 mark this spring, while junior Juan Melian, the 2011 Southern Conference Player of the Year before transferring from Georgia Southern, has a 6-5 mark this spring at the No. 3 position.
Thorne continues to work to solidify the bottom of the Yellow Jackets’ singles order, and has gotten a boost from freshman Sebastian Lopez of Medellin, Colombia, who enrolled at Tech for spring semester and became eligible last week, posting a 4-2 mark at the No. 6 position. Another freshman, Eduardo Segura from Madrid, Spain, and senior Dusan Miljevic have gone 8-13 at the No. 4-5 positions.
King and Spir, the nation’s No. 2-ranked doubles team, has lost just once this spring, to Wisconsin, and are 10-1, including a win over Georgia’s top team. Thorne shuffled his No. 2 and 3 teams for the Clemson match, pairing Miljevic and Segura at No. 2 and Lopez and Vikram Hundal at No. 3, producing victories at each.
