March 15, 2005
ATLANTA – The 16th-ranked Georgia Tech women’s tennis team (10-2, 4-0 ACC) travels to Athens to face in-state rival No. 2 Georgia (10-1, 5-0 SEC) at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. The Yellow Jackets will be seeking their first victory in the 16th meeting between the two schools after falling 4-3 to the Bulldogs in last season’s regular-season match in Atlanta, and 4-0 in the second round of the 2004 NCAA Championships.
The Yellow Jackets achieved their highest ranking ever this week, appearing at No. 16 in the polls released on March 15th, after tying the highest ranking last week, and Georgia moved from No. 3 to No. 2 in the polls this Tuesday.
Georgia Tech is currently on a five-game winning streak and has lost just two matches this season, against No. 18 Harvard and sixth-ranked Vanderbilt, while the Bulldogs are riding a six-game win streak after falling in their only loss of the season to top-ranked Stanford.
“Georgia is definitely one of the top teams in the country,” said Georgia Tech head coach Bryan Shelton. “They really have a lot of talent on their team. Last year we played them really tough here and fell just short, but that match stuck with us.”
“It seems like this has been a year of firsts for us, so hopefully this will be another first for us. This match is just another great opportunity for our team to face an opponent ranked this high and we will go out with nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”
The Yellow Jackets are 8-0 when winning the doubles point this season and have won two-thirds of their doubles matches and 64 percent of their singles matches this spring. Overall, they are 8-2 against ranked opponents and have recorded two 7-0 victories this spring, one 6-1 win, and have defeated opponents 5-2 on four occasions.
Rookie Kristi Miller has led the Yellow Jackets all season, as she has recorded a Georgia Tech record-32 singles victories this year and currently stands as the nation’s 24th-ranked singles player. She has also teamed with Alison Silverio for much of the spring to form the 20th-ranked doubles team in the country, and stands tied for sixth for most doubles victories in a season (21) while Silverio’s 22 doubles victories is tied for third in the school annals.
Dasha Potapova broke into the singles rankings a week ago, standing 94th in the nation, and has won four of her last five singles matches, all against ACC opponents.
