Jokic Ends Fall Slate At Oracle Challenger Series

Wednesday, November 6

TBD

University of Georgia

WTA 125K

November 13, 2019 | Women's Tennis

HOUSTON-----University of Georgia's Katarina Jokic now focuses on leading the Bulldogs in 2020 after seeing her tournament run at the Oracle Challenger Series end here Wednesday.

Named the 2019 National Player of the Year as a sophomore, Jokic, a native of Novi Grad, Bosnia, entered this fall as the nation's top-ranked collegiate player. She played a mix of collegiate tournaments and professional events. Houston served as the latest stop on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) professional 125K series tour. Jokic received a wildcard into the main draw after winning the Oracle ITA Fall National Championships last year.

Jokic opened the Houston event with a 6-4,6-2 win over American professional Kayla Day, ranked No. 434. Jokic converted six of eight break point opportunities and used a strong service game to advance to the round of 32. On Wednesday, she forced Luxembourg native Mandy Minella, ranked No. 137, to three sets, before falling 1-6,6-3,6-4.

"Today was an impressive showing for Kat versus a world class player," said Georgia head coach Jeff Wallace. "The match just came down to a few points. Learning from this experience is most important as she will be back in this environment again."

An indication of how close Wednesday's match turned out to be, the total points won was 87-81. Minella's service game was slightly more effective. Both players won 64 percent of points on their first serve while Minella won 55 percent of points on her second serve compared to 38 percent by Jokic. Also, Jokic had five doubles faults to none by Minella.

Despite falling short Wednesday, Wallace was pleased with Jokic's overall performance including notching a first-round win.

"Tuesday was a great win for Kat in one of the biggest individual tournaments of her career," he said. "She showed great resilience and played with a focused purpose. Certainly, this was one of her best matches of the fall."

Up next, the Bulldogs will play host to an Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Kick-Off event in January that opens the dual match season with Notre Dame, Furman and Michigan State coming to Athens. The Bulldogs, the top seed here, will open against No. 4 seed Michigan State on Saturday, Jan. 25 while No. 2 seed Notre Dame plays No. 3 seed Furman. Host sites were selected based on the final 2018-2019 Oracle/ITA Collegiate Tennis Rankings. The winner of the ITA Kick-Off event advances to the National Team Indoors, Feb. 5-10 in Chicago.