In the Sweet 16 round for the 11th time in team history, the Georgia Tech women’s tennis team will try to keep its season going Sunday.
At the NCAA championships in Lake Nona, Fla., the No. 13-seed Yellow Jackets will face No. 4-seed UCLA in the round of 16. Tech advanced out of regional play last weekend with wins over Georgia Southern and North Florida. The winner of Tech-UCLA faces the winner of Pepperdine-Michigan on Wednesday.
“UCLA has great players in their lineup,” Tech coach Rodney Harmon wrote in an email. “We will need to play well in every spot in singles and try to win the doubles point.”
In their 10 Sweet 16 visits, the Jackets have won to advance to the quarterfinals three times. Once was en route to the 2007 national championship, the school’s lone national title awarded by the NCAA. In 2018, Tech reached the Final Four, defeating the same Bruins in the quarterfinals. UCLA also was the Jackets’ opponent in the national final in 2007.
UCLA is 21-4 and has won 13 of its past 14 matches. The Jackets are 20-10, and their only loss in their past nine matches was to North Carolina, which is the tournament’s top seed and is on a 46-match winning streak.
“This team has showed great resiliency and fight,” Harmon wrote. “We have played our best tennis the past month and a half with contributions from everyone. Carol Lee and Mahak Jain have been anchors for us at No. 5 and No. 6, which has taken some of the pressure off Kenya Jones and Victoria Flores at the top.”
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