May 22, 2013
Urbana, Ill. – Georgia Tech’s Juan Spir bowed out early in the NCAA Singles Championship Wednesday morning, and the Yellow Jacket senior now looks ahead to the doubles draw which begins Thursday at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex/Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Ill., hosted by the University of Illinois.
Spir, ranked 44th in the ITA national singles rankings, dropped a 6-3, 6-2 decision to 30th-ranked Andre Dome of Cal Poly in the opening round at 8 a.m. local time Wednesday morning. The senior from Medellin, Colombia finished the 2012-13 year with a 21-16 singles record, and completed his singles career at Georgia Tech with a 75-53 mark.
Spir and sophomore Vikram Hundal will face Colin Roller and Joran Vliegen of East Carolina in the opening round of the doubles draw Thursday. The winner of that match advances to face the winner of a first-round match between Junior Ore and Jackson Withrow of Texas A&M and Stefan Fortman and Cameron Silverman of Elon.
Spir is playing in the Doubles Championship for the third time, this time with a different partner. Spir and Hundal, a sophomore from Alpharetta, Ga., joined forces in the fall to play in the USTA/ITA Southeast Regional and won the title the first time they played together competitively. They went on to win the consolation draw at the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships.
They have gone 11-1 in tournament play this year, and were 7-3 at the top of Tech’s doubles lineup in dual matches before Hundal sustained a knee injury at the end of February. Ranked third in the ITA national rankings at the time, they are currently ranked 10th with an 18-5 cumulative record, including a victory over Auburn’s Daniel Cochrane and Andreas Mies, ranked No. 1 at the time, in February.
Spir, a two-time ITA All-American in doubles, is finishing up a career in which he has become the most accomplished doubles player in Tech history. He partnered with Kevin King to win 75 matches in two-plus years before this season. Spir has been involved in a Tech-record 101 doubles victories in his career. He was 4-2 in NCAA doubles competition with King, reaching the semifinals in 2011.
