Feb. 8, 2011
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech’s men’s tennis team begins a big week of home court action by hosting cross-town foe Georgia State at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Bill Moore Tennis Center on the Tech campus. Admission is free.
The 21st-ranked Yellow Jackets (4-1) bring a two-match winning streak into Wednesday’s match, having defeated No. 34 Mississippi State, 4-0, last Saturday in their most recent outing. The Panthers (5-2) have won five straight after an 0-2 start. Tech also will host No. 11 Georgia at 1 p.m. Saturday.
“We have our two in state matches in the same week,” said head coach Kenny Thorne. “Georgia State is a much improved team from last year. Our focus is on building from this past weekend and doing what we do best. We are not interested in being a pretty good team. We want to be excellent. I don’t believe you can be excellent one day and not the next.”
All-American Guillermo Gomez, who won his 100th career match Saturday, will look to continue his climb up the Tech career singles wins chart. The senior from Alicante, Spain, who is ranked 12th in the nation and has a 15-5 overall singles record at the No. 1 position, will tie Bryan Shelton, Tech’s current women’s coach, with his next victory.
Meanwhile, junior Kevin King (No. 4 in the lineup) of Peachtree City, Ga., looks to stay undefeated in the spring, having won all four of his matches (his match against Mississippi State was unfinished after the Jackets clinched the match) in the dual season to improve to 8-4.
Juan Spir, a sophomore from Medellin, Colombia, is 4-1 at the No. 2 position this spring, 15-5 overall, and Eliot Potvin, a senior from Hampden, Maine, got his game back on track with a big win over the Bulldogs last Saturday and is 3-2 at the No. 3 position.
Sophomore Magin Ortiga (Cartagina, Colombia) has won two straight matched at No. 5 and is 3-1 this spring (10-6 overall).
King and Spir improved to 3-1 at the No. 1 doubles position after pulling out a 9-8 decision Saturday against Mississippi State. Potvin and Ryan Smith are 4-1 at No. 2, and Gomez and Dean O’Brien are undefeated (5-0) at the No. 3 spot.
“You can be good one day and not good the next,” added Thorne. “You can even be great one day and not great the next but I don’t think excellence has any variance. You either are excellent or your not. Excellence is positively and productively controlling what is controllable to the best of our abilities every second of the day. That is our goal.”
