ATHENS — Other than a long soaking rain shower in the middle of the late-afternoon matches, Thursday was a great first day for the NCAA tennis tournament.
Unfortunately for the No. 6-seeded Georgia Bulldogs, they were caught in the middle of storm. When the weather came through, the Bulldog had secured the doubles point against No. 11 Texas, had won all six first sets in singles and were ahead in the second set of four others.
After the 58-minute delay, the match resumed, as did Georgia’s dominance. The Bulldogs rolled to a 4-0 win in what amounted to just over 2 1/2 hours of actual playing time.
“Very, very encouraging,” Georgia coach Jeff Wallace said. “From start to finish, this might have been our best match of the year.”
It certainly was better than the previous one. The Bulldogs (24-4) needed Maho Kowase to come back from an 0-6 first set to defeat Clemson 4-3 on Friday. Kowase clinched this one, too, but 7-5, 6-1 this time.
“It’s definitely good to win one like this,” said Georgia senior Chelsey Gullickson, the 2010 singles national champion. “Sometimes you need those hard matches to give you the confidence you need to get through.”
The Bulldogs will face the winner of Duke-Virginia at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Georgia Tech’s women would gladly have taken a delay in the middle of their Round of 16 match with California. The ninth-seeded Bears were on the Yellow Jackets fast and hard and never let up.
“California today was just little bit better than us,” Tech coach Bryan Shelton said. “They’re very strong, especially up at the top of their lineup. After we lost the doubles point, it was too much of a mountain for us to climb in the singles.”
The Yellow Jackets, who won a 2007 national championship here at UGA’s Dan Magill Tennis Complex, finish the season at 16-12.
“I thought we finished the season strong,” Shelton said. “Our team started really believing in themselves and the work they put in throughout the season. I think it showed at our regional.”
The Jackets lose four seniors off this year’s squad, but expect to be back in national hunt quickly. Four players are coming in for next season as part of a highly ranked recruiting class, including ninth-ranked junior Catherine Harrison of Memphis.
“I think the future is bright,” Shelton said. “We’ve got four great freshmen coming in next year, we’ve got some returnees and some girls that really battled for us. I’m excited about the youth that we have coming in and the talent that we have. I’m also proud of what this team accomplished this year.”
Also advancing to the quarterfinals were top-seed UCLA (4-0 over Rice), No. 5-seed USC (4-1 over Baylor) and No. 4-seed Stanford (4-1 over Northwestern. Three other matches needed to be completed.
The men’s portion of the tournament gets underway Friday. Top-seed USC highlights the action with a 9 a.m. match against Illinois, and No. 2-seed Georgia caps off the day with a 7 p.m. match against North Carolina.
