May 7, 2015
By Jon Cooper
The Good Word
Eduardo Segura only thought he was saying goodbye to Georgia Tech when he received his diploma last Saturday at McCamish Pavilion during Spring Graduation exercises.
The native of Madrid, Spain, isn’t free to go, yet.
His teammates on the Men’s Tennis Team won’t let him leave. In fact, they’ve dedicated themselves to keeping him around as long as possible.
When they take the court at Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center in Oxford, Miss., on the University of Mississippi campus, Friday afternoon to take on No. 17 Columbia University (the match begins at 1 p.m. ET), they’ll be looking not only to advance in the NCAA in the Tournament and take on host, No. 14 Ole Miss, but continue to add on to the rich final chapter of Segura’s career.
Segura has earned such effort considering what he’s meant to the program since arriving on the Flats in 2011.
“He’s a passionate guy, he’s played for this team for four years strong and has had some heartaches with the team,” said Coach Kenny Thorne. “Toward the end of the season, we were like, `Look, whatever strength you can muster up, keep the faith, keep believing and let’s get this done for Eddie. Let’s not let him get out of here right after the ACC Tournament.'”
The team immediately bought in.
“We said, `Play for Eddie. Play for Eddie’ `It could be Eddie’s last match,” said freshman Chris Eubanks, who is ranked No. 53 in the country — he’s been invited to play in NCAA Tournament singles — and has upended three top-20 players while playing at No. 1. “We went out there and played well [against Duke] then the ACC Tournament, we kept the same thing, `Play for Eddie because any one of these matches could be his very last match.’ That was a really cool dynamic. Nothing’s going to change because we don’t want to see Eddie go out. This is Eddie’s first time in the Tournament so playing for Eddie is huge right now. We’re riding that wave out.”
“We’re going to treat [Columbia] as it could be the last match for Eddie just like we treated the last three or four matches,” added junior Nathan Rakitt. “So we’re going to keep pushing and literally fight like it could be the last time out on the court. For Eddie that might be true.”
Pushing and fighting got the No. 42 Jackets (14-12, 4-8, 10th in the ACC) into the Tournament for the 15th time in school history and the 11th in the Kenny Thorne Era.
“We didn’t get into the Tournament the way we planned at the beginning of the season. We planned it a totally different way,” said Thorne, with a laugh. “But we planned to be there and we planned to not just be there but to do something once we got there. So our goals were a lot higher than we were achieving throughout the season. The guys know specifically what our goals were at the beginning of the season and we haven’t accomplished them. So the wins late, as of late, will give that little extra bit of belief.”
Rakitt credits the coaching staff for planting, then nurturing the seed to keep on believing even when things looked at their worst. Following a 5-2 loss to North Carolina on April 17, the Jackets had lost seven of eight matches, earning two or fewer points in six of those contests.
“Just about a week and a half ago we were out of the rankings and it didn’t really seem like we had a shot to make it to NCAAs,” recalled Rakitt. “But Kenny and [Assistant Coach] Derek [Schwandt] and [Volunteer Coach] Brad [Horton] kept believing in us. We kept believing in ourselves and we kind of had this mindset that we’re going to play for Eddie because we never knew when it was going to be his last match. To be able to see all the hard work pay off is great to see.”
The turnaround came on Senior Day, when the Jackets refused to let Segura lose in his final Byers Complex match against No. 8 Duke. They came back to win, 4-3, with sophomore Carlos Benito, a countryman of Segura, and his protégé, winning the decisive match, 7-6 (13-11), 3-6, 6-3, to clinch the 4-3 win.
Being on the right side of a 4-3 — Tech had been 1-4 in such matches — made all the difference, as Tech stormed to three straight wins in the ACCs before losing in the semifinals to No. 11 Wake Forest.
“The Duke win heading into the ACC Tournament gave them belief,” said Thorne. “They were so close the whole season but to get that win just showed, `Hey, we ARE right there and we can compete with the best.'”
“We had a couple of 4-3 losses, actually more than a couple, 4-3,” said Segura. “Then, after we got that 4-3 against Duke I felt that gave us a little more confidence. It’s not just tennis-wise. It’s mentally I feel like. I think that win is going to help us in the NCAAs to have a positive mindset and go there with a lot of confidence. We’re ready.”
Adding to the Jackets’ confidence is that they are familiar with Columbia, having met them back in January at Byers Complex in the MLK Invitational, during which the Jackets took five of the nine singles matches, while the Lions swept doubles.
“The moment we found out it was Columbia, everybody started going back to their evals that we do after each match and were trading notes,” said Eubanks, who will play 17th-ranked Winston Lin (Lin took a 6-1, 6-2 decision over Rakitt at the MLK). “It brings a really cool dynamic to it. They know what we’re like, we know what they’re like, so there are no questions going into it. It should be a pretty fun match-up.”
Perhaps the biggest difference — and the Jackets hope advantage — is that this match will be outdoors. The forecast calls for 80 degrees with a 20 percent chance of rain.
“It looks like it’s going to be pretty toasty. So I’m pretty confident that’s in our favor,” said Rakitt. “We’re kind of used to the heat. Most of us are Southern boys.”
The Lions will take the court for the school’s 10th NCAA Tournament appearance with plenty of confidence, as they rolled through the Ivy League, going 7-0, to repeat as conference champs. They feature a pair of teams ranked in the top 100 — Lin and Mike Vermeer (No. 46) and Ashok Narayana and Dragos Ignat (84th), who were 8-0 in dual play. Their third team, Max Schnur and Bert Vancura, also was perfect in dual play (6-0).
It’s a stiff challenge but the Jackets will give it all they’ve got to continue to extend Segura’s career. He’s more than willing to let it ride.
“I’m sure it helped a little bit. I’m glad the guys did that and it worked. So we’ll just keep doing it now and work hard to try to win the Tournament,” he said. “We ended the season with a very good run, beating some teams that were very highly ranked and got the opportunity to participate to my first NCAAs. So that’s a very good feeling and we’re very excited as a team to go to Ole Miss and beat Columbia first and then beat Ole Miss or whoever they play.”
“To be able to send Eddie out on a high note is really important,” added Rakitt. “We’ve put in the work. Now it’s time to let it shine.”
