Feb. 5, 2010
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech’s men’s tennis team, No. 41 in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, renews its rivalry with Georgia Sunday with a 1 p.m. match against the No. 7 Bulldogs at the Lindsey Hopkins Indoor Facility.
The Yellow Jackets, 6-1 for the spring, look to bounce back from a shutout loss at Florida in last week’s ITA Kickoff Weekend after winning their first six matches of the dual season. Georgia, which has won 23 straight over Tech in the series, is 3-0 this spring and has won 64 consecutive matches at home. The last Tech victory occurred in 1988 in Athens by a 5-4 score.
“We never have to try hard to get our athletes excited about their competition against Georgia,” said head coach Kenny Thorne. “We are more focused on correcting what we didn’t do well last match. We pressed a little hard in our last match and didn’t allow ourselves to play our best.
“UGA has a good team, and we have played many of the players quite a few times. We played in three tournaments at UGA this fall, so our guys know what to expect. Our guys have worked extremely hard and know what they need to do. They are eager to play.”
Both teams have two players listed in the most recent singles rankings. Tech is led by junior Guillermo Gomez, who is ranked No. 4 and has a 16-3 overall singles record (3-1 dual) this year. Sophomore Dusan Miljevic, ranked No. 112, is 13-4 overall in singles, 4-3 in dual matches.
The Bulldogs have two players in the most recent singles rankings: Javier Garrapiz is No. 45 and Drake Bernstein is ranked 60th.
Juniors Eliot Potvin (12-5 singles, 6-1 dual), Miguel Muguruza (15-5, 4-2) and Dean O’Brien (10-6, 5-2) all have head successful starts in the spring dual season for Georgia Tech. Thorne’s two freshmen, Magin Ortiga (10-7, 4-1) and Juan Spir (4-7, 1-4), have had mixed success but have showed promise.
In fall singles play, mostly in the Bulldog Scramble, Tech’s players enjoyed some success against Georgia, including a 3-0 head-to-head mark by Miljevic and a 2-0 record for Muguruza. Spir lost to Bernstein in both of their matches, taking the Bulldog player to a third-set tiebreaker in the first meeting and dropping the other in straight sets.
