April 23, 2014
ACC Men’s Tennis Championship Site
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech’s men’s tennis team will look to avenge a regular-season loss to NC State Thursday afternoon when it takes on the sixth-seeded Wolfpack at 3 p.m. in a first-round Atlantic Coast Conference match at the Cary (N.C.) Tennis Center.
The 26th-ranked Wolfpack (16-8, 5-6 ACC) downed Tech (7-14, 1-10 ACC) by a 6-1 score in Raleigh on March 30. Tech comes into the ACC Championship having dropped eight straight matches since a 6-1 win over Boston College on March 21.
The winner of Thursday’s match moves on to the quarter-final round to face No. 3 seed and eighth-ranked North Carolina at 3 p.m. Friday. Semi-final matches will take place Saturday at 10 a.m., with the championship match at 11 a.m. Sunday.
Sophomore Nathan Rakitt, ranked 104th in this week’s Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, leads a short-handed Tech roster that has played just five players for the past two weeks due to injuries and other issues.
Rakitt scored the only point for Tech against the Wolfpack on March 30, defeating Robbie Mudge, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. The Marietta, Ga., native has defeated the nation’s 19th-ranked player, Amerigo Contini of Virginia Tech, and the 68th-ranked player, Dominique Maden of Clemson, in recent matches. He is 19-19 overall, 10-10 in the spring and 8-8 at the top of the Tech lineup.
Freshman Carlos Benito (Madrid, Spain), has a 20-21 overall mark and plays No. 2 in the singles, lineup, followed by junior Eduardo Segura (Madrid, Spain), who is 6-15 playing the third position. Freshman Cole Fiegel (Alachua, Fla.) has impressed as a freshman playing the No. 4 spot, building a 20-14 overall record and a 12-6 mark this spring. Junior Colin Edwards (Valrico, Fla.) mans the fifth position.
On the double side, Benito and Segura form the No. 1 team for Tech, ranked 65th nationally while posting a 10-10 spring mark. Rakitt and Fiegel, 9-10 overall, play the No. 2 spot.
