May 21, 2013
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech senior Juan Spir and sophomore Vikram Hundal, ranked No. 10 in the nation as a doubles team, begin play Thursday in the NCAA Doubles Championship, and Spir, ranked 44th nationally in singles, will begin competition Wednesday in the NCAA Singles Championship.
The NCAA Singles and Doubles Championship will be conducted May 22-27 at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex/Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Ill., hosted by the University of Illinois. All matches will be the best of three sets. Regular scoring and a 12-point tiebreaker at six games all will be used for all matches.
Spir has been matched against Andre Dome of Cal Poly for his first-round contest at 8 a.m. local time Wednesday morning. The winner of that match will face the winner of No. 4 seed Anthony Rossi of Kentucky and John Morrissey of Stanford.
The senior from Medellin, Colombia and Hundal will face Colin Roller and Joran Vliegen of East Carolina in the opening round of the doubles draw Thursday. The winner of that match advances to face the winner of a first-round match between Junior Ore and Jackson Withrow of Texas A&M and Stefan Fortman and Cameron Silverman of Elon.
“Juan and Vik have been practicing for a few weeks now so it will be great for them to finally get to compete,” said Tech coach Kenny Thorne. “It’s a very good accomplishment for them to just get to the NCAAs, but they have higher goals. You don’t slowly work your way through this tournament because everybody is good. You have to be poised and start strong. Juan has done an incredible job of representing Georgia Tech in three separate NCAA tournaments. It is great exposure and I am excited for him and Georgia Tech.”
Spir is playing in the NCAA Singles Championship for the second time, having lost in the opening round last spring. He has built a 21-15 overall record this year, 12-10 in dual matches and 8-2 in ACC matches, splitting time between the No. 1 and 2 spots in the Tech singles lineup. He won six straight matches toward the end of the regular season, including four straight over ranked opponents and a straight-set win over the nation’s top-ranked player, Alex Domijan of Virginia, and is 75-52 in his Tech career.
The senior from Medellin, Colombia is playing in the Doubles Championship for the third time, this time with a different partner. Spir and Hundal, a sophomore from Alpharetta, Ga., joined forces in the fall to play in the USTA/ITA Southeast Regional and won the title the first time they played together competitively. They went on to win the consolation draw at the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships.
They have gone 11-1 in tournament play this year, and were 7-3 at the top of Tech’s doubles lineup in dual matches before Hundal sustained a knee injury at the end of February. Ranked third in the ITA national rankings at the time, they are currently ranked 10th with an 18-5 cumulative record, including a victory over Auburn’s Daniel Cochrane and Andreas Mies, ranked No. 1 at the time, in February.
Spir and sophomore teammate Eduardo Segura, who are 7-6 together this year and ranked 38th, are listed as alternates in the NCAA draw.
Spir, a two-time ITA All-American in doubles, is finishing up a career in which he has become the most accomplished doubles player in Tech history. He partnered with Kevin King to win 75 matches in two-plus years before this season. Spir has been involved in a Tech-record 101 doubles victories in his career. He was 4-2 in NCAA doubles competition with King, reaching the semifinals in 2011.
