University of Georgia Athletics
Bulldogs Building On Big Moments
March 22, 2017 | Women's Tennis
<b>By <a href="https://twitter.com/FriersonFiles" target="_blank">John Frierson </a> <br>UGAAA Staff Writer</b>
It's not just what you do in the big moments that matters. What you do in the moments after the big moments can be just as pivotal and revealing.
Both the Georgia men's and women's tennis teams played the No. 1 teams in the country last Friday, an odd occurrence for sure, followed by another match on Sunday. Both were able to walk off the court at the end Friday feeling good about their performances and about what might be possible the rest of the season.
The Lady Bulldogs, ranked No. 6 at the time, went down to Gainesville and knocked off Florida, 4-1, snapping the Gators' 163-match home win streak. The Georgia men, meanwhile, went toe to toe with top-ranked Wake Forest at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex, falling 4-3.
Georgia's then-No. 12 men, playing without Paul Oosterbaan, who's missed most of the season with an injury, came very close to pulling off the big win. In the final match, at No. 2 singles, with the team score even at 3-3, Emil Reinberg was up 2-0 in the third set when leg cramps struck and his movement was compromised the rest of the way. Reinberg hung on as well as he could before falling 6-4 in the deciding set.
"There's no words for Emil's fight," sophomore Walker Duncan said. "It was heroic out there."
Less than 48 hours after the match with Wake Forest, surely one of the best,most compelling matches in the country this spring, the Bulldogs were in Knoxville playing Tennessee. Georgia easily could have come out flat last Sunday and struggled, but instead it played well enough for a 4-3 win, clinching at 4-2.
The men don't have a senior on their roster. With Oosterbaan, a redshirt junior, out, Wayne Montgomery is the only junior in the lineup; also playing are three sophomores and two freshmen. It's one of the youngest teams that coach Manuel Diaz has ever had and they're learning and progressing.
"We saw where we were at as a team against Wake Forest and we're obviously still climbing," Montgomery said. "The SEC is the one we want, the regular-season title, and I think we're well on the road to that. With that being said, there's still a lot of work to be done."
For the Georgia women, now ranked No. 3, it was a decisive victory in one of the toughest places to play in the country, as the Gators' streak demonstrates. The Lady Dogs (11-3, 5-1 SEC) reached the semifinals of the national indoors in February and aside from close home losses to No. 6 Georgia Tech and No. 8 Vanderbilt (current rankings for both), have had a postive spring.
What they did at Florida had been building in recent weeks, junior Ellen Perez said.
"I think the learning curve kind of came a few weeks before that, even taking in the losses to Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech," she said. "I think our aim after that was kind of perseverance and being resilient enough to bounce back from that.
"We know we're a team that can compete with these top-level teams and we knew we were better than how we had performed, so I think from there we progress and coming into Florida we had something to prove."
And prove something, they did. As important as the win was for the SEC championship race and for the Lady Dogs' confidence heading down the stretch, the team's 4-0 win at South Carolina two days later was also telling.
"The mark of any great program, of any great team, of any successful year, it's not just being able to recover after your devastating defeats, it's just as important to get out there and continue to do the right things after a really exciting victory," coach Jeff Wallace said. "It was very important for us to play in that next match and excel and do what we did."
It has been an unusual, up-and-down season for the Bulldogs, now ranked No. 14. In February the guys lost five straight matches, a program first, to UCLA, USC, Ohio State, North Carolina and Baylor — all of whom are currently ranked in the top 10.
The Bulldogs answered those five losses with five straight wins, a streak that ended against the No. 1 Demon Deacons. Georgia is now 9-6 this season, 4-0 in the SEC, and all six losses are to top-10 teams.
"That's what we have to do, we have to figure out a way when the going gets tough to come out on top in these matches," Duncan said. "Stuff is starting to look up; Wake Forest is obviously one of the best teams in the country and we proved that we're right there with them."
Both Georgia teams have a pair of home matches ahead: the men host LSU on Thursday and Alabama on Saturday, while the women host Ole Miss Friday and No. 25 Mississippi State Sunday.
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<strong>John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: <a href="http://www.georgiadogs.com/ot/frierson-files.html" target="_blank">Frierson Files</a>. He's also on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/FriersonFiles" target="_blank">@FriersonFiles</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ITAHallofFame" target="_blank">@ITAHallofFame</a>. </strong>
Players Mentioned
