Georgia will have an opportunity to crown a national champion after all. Two, even.
A week after both the men’s and women’s teams were ousted from the NCAA Tennis Championships’ team competition, the UGA doubles team of Lauren Herring and Maho Kowase won to advance to the doubles finals. Entering the tournament seeded second, they will face Alabama’s fourth-seeded duo of Maya Jansen and Erin Routliffe on Monday around 2:30 p.m. or so. The championship match will follow Monday’s men’s and women’s singles finals, which begin at noon.
“When you first start the tournament, you don’t think this far ahead,” Herring, a junior, told reporters after Sunday’s semifinal win. “Now that we are actually here, it’s really cool. It’s awesome to be at home. We have the best fans. It’s awesome out here.”
Herring and Kowase reached the final by recording a a 6-4, 7-5 win over Auburn’s No. 15 pair of Pleun Burgmans and Emily Flickinger Sunday afternoon at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. It marks the fifth time that a Georgia tandem has made the national finals, but a Georgia team has never won the championship. Former Bulldogs Chelsey Gullickson and Nadja Gilchrist made the final in 2012.
“We came out and got the lead in the first set and were playing fantastic,” Georgia coach Jeff Wallace said. “But it’s the NCAA tournament so you know you’re playing some good servers and big hitters and its going to turn into an exciting match. The second set was super exciting. It was great to get that late break and serve it out. It was high level tennis from both teams. It was a lot of fun. Our girls are loose and really enjoying this ride.”
National champions will also be determined in singles and men’s doubles on Monday. In the women’s singles final will feature Lynn Chi of California vs. Danielle Collins of Virginia, while the men’s will match Alex Sarkissian of Pepperdine and Markos Giron of UCLA.
Peter Kobelt and Kevin Metka of Ohio State will face off against Tennessee’s Mikael Libietis and Hunter Reese in the men’s doubles championship.
