May 25, 2010
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech’s Guillermo Gomez, the No. 4 seed for the 2010 NCAA Men’s Singles Championship draw, opens play in the championship at 1 p.m. Wednesday against Moritz Baumann of Wisconsin at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga.
The junior from Alicante, Spain is in the singles championship for the third straight year. His is 1-2 for his career in the championship, and won his first-round match last spring. Gomez is ranked No. 4 in the nation in the most recent ITA rankings. Baumann, a senior from Inzlingen, Germany, is ranked No. 22 nationally.
Gomez, a three-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection who has been ranked as high as No. 3 nationally, has a 27-7 singles record this year, and has led the Jackets at the No. 1 position with a 14-5 dual match record in the spring. He is also 14-6 against ranked players. Gomez enters the NCAA singles championship with an 83-24 career singles mark, ranking sixth all-time at Tech in singles victories.
“I’m looking forward to playing these matches and giving my best,” said Gomez. “I know every match I play is going to be difficult. I know many of the competitors in the field, and if I don’t know them, I can find out through friends or watching them play. I need to focus on playing my best game.”
He and Baumann met in the fall in the quarterfinals of the ITA National Indoor Championship, and Gomez came away with a 6-4, 6-1 victory. Baumann, a unanimous all-Big Ten choice, is 28-9 overall in singles this year. The winner of Wednesday’s match will face the winner of the first-round match between Saketh Myneni of Alabama and Ivan Salec of Radford on Thursday.
Also in Gomez’ part of the bracket are two foes whom he has met in the spring, Yoann Re of Virginia Tech (Gomez won both) and Eric Quigley of Kentucky (Quigley won in the NCAA regional). The NCAA singles and doubles competition runs through May 31.
The top eight seeds for the NCAA Men’s Singles Championship are: 1. Henrique Cunha, Duke, 2. Steve Johnson, Southern California, 3. John-Patrick Smith, Tennessee, 4. Guillermo Gomez, Georgia Tech, 5. Austin Krajicek, Texas A&M, 6. Oleksandr Nedovyesov, Oklahoma State, 7. Chase Buchanan, Ohio State, 8. Alexandre Lacroix, Florida.
Irina Falconi, the No. 1 women’s player in the nation for the Yellow Jackets, opens play in the NCAA Singles Championship at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday against Jackie Wu of Vanderbilt. She and teammate Sasha Krupina will face Stanford’s Hillary Barte and Lindsay Burdette, the No. 2 seeded women’s doubles team, Thursday in the opening round of the doubles championship.
