May 23, 2013
NCAA Tennis Championship home page
Urbana, Ill. – Georgia Tech’s doubles team of Juan Spir and Vikram Hundal won their opening match in the NCAA Doubles Championship Thursday, knocking off an East Carolina duo at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex/Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Ill., hosted by the University of Illinois.
The Tech tandem, ranked 10th in the nation, overcame a first-set loss to defeat the Pirates’ Colin Roller and Joran Vliegen, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3) 6-1 Thursday afternoon. They advance to meet Junior Ore and Jackson Withrow of Texas A&M in Friday’s round of 16 at a time to be announced.
Spir 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 12-1 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 now 19-5.
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 102 doubles victories in his career. He was 4-2 in NCAA doubles competition with King, reaching the semifinals in 2011.
