May 10, 2005
ATLANTA – The sixth-seeded Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets will begin the 2005 NCAA Tournament by facing Winthrop in the first round of the Atlanta Regional, which will be held at the Bill Moore Tennis Center May 13-14.
The Yellow Jackets and Eagles will face each other Friday at 2 p.m. with the winner advancing to the second round to meet either Mississippi State or Pepperdine Saturday at 11 a.m.
“I think, for our team, it is important that we keep concentrating on what we need to do to play good tennis,” said Georgia Tech head coach Bryan Shelton. “It’s what we have been doing all season: concentrating on executing on the court.”
“We know that if we execute well, our chances of winning are really good,” Shelton added.
Tech is coming off its first ACC Championship in history and is currently ranked fifth in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). It has one ranked singles player in freshman Kristi Miller, who is 12th in the rankings after recording a school-record 38 singles wins this season, while she teams with sophomore Alison Silverio to form the nation’s No. 17 doubles duo.
Miller has raked in multiple awards this season, including the ITA South Region Rookie of the Year and ACC Rookie of the Year honors, while being named to the all-ACC team with more than 35 singles and 25 doubles victories.
Silverio recorded a come-from-behind victory at the No. 4 doubles position in the championship match of the ACC Tournament to earn ACC Championship MVP honors after being named all-conference for the first time in her career.
Also joining Silverio and Miller on the all-conference team was senior Dasha Potapova, who has recorded her fourth-consecutive year with at least 20 singles victories. The Moscow native is now 24-11 on the season and has also recorded 24 doubles wins in 2005.
For the last eight matches, Potapova has teamed with Lyndsay Shosho in doubles play, and they have more than 40 doubles victories on the season between the two of them. Shosho also has the top dual-match record of anyone on the team in singles in 2005, with a 17-4 mark (.810 winning percentage).
Junior Kelly Anderson has provided a spark in the middle of the singles lineup of late, winning her last three matches, including a 7-6 (8), 6-1 victory over Miami’s Melissa Applebaum in the ACC Championship. A native of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Anderson is 22-15 in singles and has a 24-13 mark in doubles play this season.
She has teamed with Whitney McCray over the last eight matches in doubles, and together the duo has posted a 6-2 mark, including a 5-0 record during the regular season. McCray joined the Yellow Jackets in early January and currently has the second-best winning percentage for a single season in Georgia Tech history, with a 15-4 mark in doubles play.
Rounding out the Tech lineup is Kacie Anson, who has played in the last three matches at No. 6 singles, where she went 1-1. She had a key victory against Florida State’s Amberly Tantee in quarterfinal action to help Georgia Tech advance to the next round.
The eighth member of the Georgia Tech team is Esther van Londen, who has been hampered by injuries for much of the year. She has played in a total of five dual matches, where she was perfect in doubles play while going 1-1 in singles action. Overall, she is 6-4 in singles and 11-2 in doubles this season.
“Obviously there are a lot of great teams in this tournament, but we also know that we are one of them,” said Shelton. “If we concentrate on what we can do on the court and what we can take care of, such as our attitude, the way we hustle, and the way that we compete for every point, I think that we will be in good shape.”
