Bulldogs Tennis Teams Start 2012 With Wins

Due to ongoing technical difficulties chez NCT, your tennis results from Friday, 13 January 2012, are being brought to you from the Mechanicsville Branch of the Atlanta Fulton County Public Library System. And they're being brought to you late. We are, however, committed to offering news of all UGA sports, and T. Kyle King has already brought you the bad gymnastics news out of Tuscaloosa last night.

The men's and women's tennis teams fared a bit better in their respective outings as the women posted a team victory over visiting Kansas State, and three members of the men's team advanced in the SEC Coaches' Indoor Tournament in Lexington.

via www.secdigitalnetwork.com

For those unfamiliar with intercollegiate team tennis, we will have a more comprehensive look at the sport, how it's scored, and how it's been played in Athens over the last few generations (hint: it's been played very well). Alas, the comprehensive look is delayed a bit by the aforementioned technical difficulties. For now, we'll start with the basics of how head-to-head meetings are won and lost between two teams. Play starts with three doubles, playing one set each. The team that wins two out of the three gets a single point for the team total. Thereafter, the teams play six singles matches, with each singles victory earning one point. There are seven points total up for grabs.

The UGA women's team defeated the Kansas State Wildcats decisively at the Lindsey Hopkins Indoor Courts in Athens by a score of 6-1. After taking a 1-0 lead by sweeping doubles, including an 8-4 upset by Kate Fuller and Lauren Herring over KSU's 28th ranked Petra Niedermayerova and Marketa Trousilova, the women went on to win five of the six singles matches. Kansas State's lone point came in a surprising win by #94 Karla Bonacic over Georgia's #22 Maho Kowase (numbers are national rankings), 6-4, 6-2.

It's an excellent start for the UGA women, currently ranked 7th in the nation as a team by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Next up for the women: Troy in Athens tomorrow, 15 January 2012 at 1:00 p.m.

Meanwhile in Lexington, the men's tennis team is participating in the SEC Coaches' Indoor Championships. The event is a competition for individual singles and doubles teams from SEC schools rather than a a tournament between entire school teams.

Your Georgia Bulldogs, ranked fourth nationally as a team, claimed both the singles and doubles championships at the event last year, held in Knoxville. This year, three Dawgs advanced yesterday: top-seeded Wil Spencer, last year's singles champion, defeated Ricky Doverspike of Alabama, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3, after a first-round bye; Sadio Doumbia defeated Johan Backstrom of Ole Miss, 6-2, 6-2, also after a bye; and KU Singh defeated Florida's Michael Alford 7-6, 6-1 and South Carolina's Andrew Adams 6-3, 7-5. Hernus Pieters and Ignacio Taboado of Georgia dropped second-round matches to UF's Andrew Butz and Kentucky's Tom Jomby, respectively. Georgia's doubles team of Singh and Eric Diaz were defeated by Kentucky's Jomby and Anthony Rossi. Play continues today and finishes tomorrow. Check back with Dawg Sports to see how our fellows do.

GO DAWGS!