By KEVIN MOBLEY – Contributing Writer
The University of Georgia Men’s and Women’s tennis teams defeated the University of Alabama on April 14, capturing the Southeastern Conference regular season titles for both programs.
The University of Georgia Men’s Tennis team capped off their regular season as SEC champions this weekend with a 5-2 win over the University of Alabama on April 14, at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex.
The UGA Women’s Tennis team also finished up their regular season on Sunday with a 4-0 victory over UA at the Roberta Alison Baumgardner Tennis Facility. The Lady Bulldogs also earned the title of SEC Champions, however, they will share the title with the University of Florida and Texas A&M University.
This is the fourth time in school history that both the Men’s and Women’s teams have won regular season titles, and it has occurred twice in the last decade (2002 and 2007).
The No. 3 Bulldogs will enter the SEC tournament in Oxford, Miss. as the No. 1 seed with a 19-4 overall record, and an 11-1 record in conference play.
The Crimson Tide drop to .500 on the season with a 12-12 record overall; 3-9 in the SEC.
The game started outdoors with the doubles portion. The Crimson Tide raced out to an early lead behind the blowout on No. 1, where partners Jarryd Botha and David Vieyra beat Garrett Brasseaux and Nathan Pasha 8-4.
The two other matches on Nos. 2 and 3 came down to the wire, as both were tied at seven before Becker O’Shaugnessey and Daniil Proskura clinched the doubles point for UA with a 9-7 win over Will Oliver and Hernus Pieters on No. 2.
However, when play was forced inside the Lindsey Hopkins Indoor Facility, the tides had turned.
UGA’s No. 7-ranked K.U. Singh defeated No. 79 Botha 6-1, 7-5 at No. 1 to tie the match at one. The Bulldogs followed up with wins at Nos. 2 and 4 by Pasha and Pieters, with Pasha defeating Proskura 6-4, 6-1 and Pieters downing Philippe Tsangarides 6-4, 6-2.
The Crimson Tide closed the gap to 3-2 with O’Shaughnessey’s win over Austin Smith 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, but UGA clinched the match at No. 5 as Brasseaux recorded a shutout, 6-0, 6-0, over Stuart Kenyon.
The No. 4 Lady Bulldogs took down the No. 8 Crimson Tide in a 4-0 shutout win. They improve to 19-2 on the season, with a 12-1 record in the SEC.
The Crimson Tide fall to 18-4 overall, with a SEC 10-3 record.
They secured the first doubles match off of an 8-5 win by Lauren Herring and Maho Kowase over Antonia Foehse and Maya Jansen, followed by a heavyweight bout between UGA’s No. 3-ranked pair of Kate Fuller and Silvia Garcia and UA’s No. 5-ranked tandem of Alexa Guarachi and Mary Anne Macfarlane.
Fuller and Garcia won a tight match 8-6, giving the Lady Bulldogs an early 1-0 lead.
In singles, UGA clinched its fifteenth SEC championship with wins from No. 6 Herring over No. 62 Guarachi 7-5, 6-1, No. 19 Kowase over No. 29 Macfarlane 6-2, 6-3 and Fuller over Foehse 6-3, 7-5.
The Bulldogs return to action on Friday, April 19, when they open the SEC tournament against the winner of the Thursday’s match between the University of Kentucky and Mississippi State University. The match will be played at 7:00 p.m. CT at the University of Mississippi’s Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center.
The Lady Bulldogs will begin the postseason with the SEC tournament, slotted as the top seed after winning the tiebreaker that included UF and TAMU. They will begin play with the winner of Thursday’s match between the University of South Carolina and the University of Mississippi. The match starts at 8:00 p.m. CT in Starkville, Miss. at MSU’s A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.
Photos by Chad Rhym
