April 26, 2012
By Matt Winkeljohn
Sting Daily
Kevin King and Juan Spir earned All-ACC honors Thursday, which was business as usual inasmuch as Georgia Tech’s superb doubles team earned similar honors after the last tennis season as well.
So, congratulations on that.
And sorry about everything else, which is nearly all unusual.
The Bill Moore Tennis Center is being demolished so coaches have had to move their offices into the Edge Center, and practices, which are presently quite limited, are being held atop the Peters Parking Deck just north of Bobby Dodd Stadium.
And since the men’s team last week fell to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tournament, the Yellow Jackets did not make the NCAA tournament. King and Spir will play in the singles and doubles competitions after the team tournament ends, but that won’t start until May 23.
“It’s strange. The other day I went to the Tennis Center, and everything is gone. There are no nets on the courts, everything is empty inside, and you feel like something that is part of you is going away,” Spir said.
“But something new is coming, and we’re trying to change, adapt. It’s fun to have a change. We’re just not paying too much attention to everything.”
Spir has three final exams and a paper due next week to wrap up his junior year, and the international affairs major is chasing a summer internship. After the ACCs, he took time off to re-calibrate.
“That’s also kind of strange because the last two years the team made it to NCAAs, and now [coach] Kenny [Thorne], Kevin and I are working out the schedule for this couple of weeks,” he said. “I took four days off just to get my mind clear, and catch my breath for what’s left. We still have the same mentality; we want to bring a title back.”
King/Spir came close last season, upsetting several higher seeds all the way to the national semifinals.
They’re presently the No. 2-ranked doubles team in the nation with a 16-2 dual meet record.
King (27-9), who did not play in the ACCs because of back spasms, is ranked No. 24, and Spir (17-12) is a career-high N. 48 with a win a few weeks ago over ACC Player of the Year Jarmere Jenkins.
