April 19, 2006
After completing the regular season with five straight conference wins, the No. 26 Georgia Tech men’s tennis team heads to the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship this weekend. The Jackets (11-8, 5-6 ACC), seeded eighth, will face ninth seed Virginia Tech (12-14, 3-8 ACC) Thursday at 9 a.m. at the Cary Tennis Center in Cary, NC.
In their previous meeting this season, the Yellow Jackets defeated the Hokies by a 5-2 score. In that match, the Jackets won the doubles point and then proceeded to win four of six singles contests.
“I expect Virginia Tech to come out very tough against us,” said head coach Kenny Thorne, who has guided the Yellow Jackets to two ACC Tournament final appearances under his helm. “In the regular season against Virginia Tech we won 5-2 but had some tough matches in singles that could have gone either way. Every team gets up for the ACC tournament so we know we have to fight hard to win every match, and we will do that.”
Should the Yellow Jackets advance, they will move on to the quarterfinals to face top-seeded and No. 3 Duke on Friday at 9 a.m. The semifinals will be played on Saturday at 10 a.m. and the finals on Sunday at 11 a.m.
Last season the Jackets defeated Maryland in the opening round before losing in the quarterfinals to Florida State by a 4-2 score.
In 2002, Tech reached the finals of the tournament before losing to North Carolina, 4-3. Tech has reached the finals of the ACC Tournament four times but has never captured the league title.
“We always want to do well in the ACC tournament,” said Thorne. “We could very well have the toughest conference in the nation and should get nine maybe 10 teams out of the 12 in the NCAA tournament. Therefore the team that wins the tournament will have some good momentum going into the NCAAs. We have a very tough match with Virginia Tech on Thursday and that is our only concern now. “
Full results from the ACC Men’s Tennis Championship will be available at www.theacc.com with a full recap and livestats of all Tech matches posted at www.ramblinwreck.com.
