University of Georgia Athletics
A Fitting End To A Special Season
May 19, 2025 | Women's Tennis, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
The best team doesn't always wind up holding the big trophy at the end. Would we watch sports the way we do if the better side always prevailed? On Sunday night at Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center, however, the best women's tennis team in the country all season long came out on top.
Top-seeded Georgia, already the ITA National Team Indoor champions earlier this year, won the program's first NCAA team title in 25 years by taking out No. 2 Texas A&M, 4-0, in a rematch of last year's final. That one went the Aggies' way, but this final was all Bulldogs.
Actually, this postseason was all Bulldogs. And other than a couple of blips, one right before the ITA Indoors and the other on a Texas road swing at the end of the regular season, this whole season was all Bulldogs. Georgia went 29-3 overall, won its third straight SEC tournament, and then blew the doors off the competition in the NCAA tournament.
In six matches during the NCAAs, Georgia won five 4-0 and one 4-1. In nine postseason matches — three at the SEC tournament and six in the NCAAs — Georgia won seven of them 4-0. The Bulldogs were the best of the best, and it was fitting that they had to go through A&M to capture the program's elusive third NCAA team title.
"I think for Georgia, we would say it's a fitting end," head coach Drake Bernstein said of beating the Aggies. "That's a team that has made us better eight times in two years."
Georgia and A&M have been going back and forth for the biggest prizes in the SEC and nationally for the past two seasons. The teams split last season's SEC regular-season crown, Georgia beat A&M in the finals of last season's SEC tournament, and the Aggies topped the Bulldogs in last year's NCAA final.
In February, Georgia beat A&M 4-1 in the finals of the ITA National Indoors. The Aggies knocked off Georgia 4-3 in the final match of the regular season to win the SEC title, but then the Bulldogs came back and beat A&M 4-2 in the finals of the SEC tournament. Then came the NCAAs.
Georgia opened its NCAA run with three matches at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex, beating Florida A&M, Georgia Tech and California — all 4-0 sweeps. After moving on to the final eight at Baylor, the Bulldogs dropped the doubles point against Duke — the only point they lost in the tournament — before winning four singles matches to advance. In the semifinals against North Carolina, which beat the Bulldogs indoors in Athens, 4-3, on Feb. 1, Georgia rolled to a 4-0 win. That set up the fitting finale between the Bulldogs and Aggies.
With two teams so evenly matched and familiar with one another, the doubles point was sure to be critical. Georgia got a quick win at the No. 2 spot, as Guillermina Grant and Anastasiia Lopata rolled to a 6-2 victory. Aysegul Mert and Hayden Mulberry then clinched the point with a 7-5 win at No. 3, putting the Bulldogs ahead 1-0 heading to singles.
At No. 1 was a heavyweight bout between Georgia's Dasha Vidmanova and A&M's Mary Stoiana, who have battled one another for four years and traded the top spot in the singles rankings all spring. Entering this match, Stoiana was ranked No. 1 and Vidmanova, the fall NCAA singles champion, was No. 2. At the end of two tight sets Sunday, Vidmanova prevailed 6-4, 6-4, to make it 2-0 Bulldogs.
Lopata's match at No. 2 against Nicole Khirin didn't get off to a great start, with Khirin winning the first six games of the match. But resiliency is one of Lopata's greatest strengths, and she was able to rally for an 0-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory.
"I had already lost one time a first set 6-0 in the SEC tournament, so I thought 'Okay, maybe I'll be okay, too,'" Lopata said. "The team needs me and everyone was still playing. I knew that I just needed to lock in and keep fighting and just win."
And she did just that. The Bulldogs were one win away from the program's first title since 2000, and they were in a good position to get a win in any of the remaining four matches. All four were tight, and three of them were in third sets.
The clinching victory came at No. 6, where Sofia Rojas dropped the first set against Lexington Reed before storming back for a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 win. After Reed's forehand sailed wide on match point, Rojas and her teammates were dancing around in circles on the court.
A brilliant season was complete. The outstanding careers of seniors Vidmanova, Grant and Mell Reasco were fittingly capped off with the only trophy they hadn't won. And for Vidmanova, she now heads toward her professional career as one of the most accomplished players in college tennis history. She's only the third woman ever to win NCAA team, singles and doubles titles.
"I was surprised, I thought I was the first one. I'm just kidding," she said. "It's obviously very special to do that, to do that for Georgia. And I'm just very happy that we won."
At the end of the 2023 season, legendary head coach Jeff Wallace retired, and the torch was passed to Bernstein, his longtime associate head coach. How's that working out? Bernstein inherited a great squad that he helped recruit and develop, and in the past two seasons Georgia has won outright or shared three SEC titles, reached two NCAA finals, won the ITA National Indoor championship and won an NCAA team title — plus an NCAA singles title for Vidmanova and an NCAA doubles title in 2024 for Vidmanova and Mert.
The women's tennis championship was the cherry on top of a stellar weekend for Georgia sports. On Saturday, the top-ranked women's track team won the SEC Outdoor Championships title, and the fifth-ranked men's team placed second. That same day, the fourth-ranked baseball team closed out its regular season by winning its series against A&M and is in an excellent position to be one of the eight national seeds in the NCAA tournament.
Before women's tennis took the court against the Aggies Sunday, Georgia's softball team was facing No. 14 Duke in the finals of the NCAA Durham Regional. The Bulldogs dropped the first game, setting up a winner-take-all second, and got behind 2-0 in the finale. Georgia scored a run in the sixth, tied the game in the seventh, and then scored three runs in the top of the eighth to prevail 5-2 and advance to next week's Super Regional at No. 3 Florida.
Weekends don't get much better for Georgia. For the women's tennis team, seasons don't get much better.
Staff Writer
The best team doesn't always wind up holding the big trophy at the end. Would we watch sports the way we do if the better side always prevailed? On Sunday night at Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center, however, the best women's tennis team in the country all season long came out on top.
Top-seeded Georgia, already the ITA National Team Indoor champions earlier this year, won the program's first NCAA team title in 25 years by taking out No. 2 Texas A&M, 4-0, in a rematch of last year's final. That one went the Aggies' way, but this final was all Bulldogs.
Actually, this postseason was all Bulldogs. And other than a couple of blips, one right before the ITA Indoors and the other on a Texas road swing at the end of the regular season, this whole season was all Bulldogs. Georgia went 29-3 overall, won its third straight SEC tournament, and then blew the doors off the competition in the NCAA tournament.
In six matches during the NCAAs, Georgia won five 4-0 and one 4-1. In nine postseason matches — three at the SEC tournament and six in the NCAAs — Georgia won seven of them 4-0. The Bulldogs were the best of the best, and it was fitting that they had to go through A&M to capture the program's elusive third NCAA team title.
"I think for Georgia, we would say it's a fitting end," head coach Drake Bernstein said of beating the Aggies. "That's a team that has made us better eight times in two years."
Georgia and A&M have been going back and forth for the biggest prizes in the SEC and nationally for the past two seasons. The teams split last season's SEC regular-season crown, Georgia beat A&M in the finals of last season's SEC tournament, and the Aggies topped the Bulldogs in last year's NCAA final.
In February, Georgia beat A&M 4-1 in the finals of the ITA National Indoors. The Aggies knocked off Georgia 4-3 in the final match of the regular season to win the SEC title, but then the Bulldogs came back and beat A&M 4-2 in the finals of the SEC tournament. Then came the NCAAs.
Georgia opened its NCAA run with three matches at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex, beating Florida A&M, Georgia Tech and California — all 4-0 sweeps. After moving on to the final eight at Baylor, the Bulldogs dropped the doubles point against Duke — the only point they lost in the tournament — before winning four singles matches to advance. In the semifinals against North Carolina, which beat the Bulldogs indoors in Athens, 4-3, on Feb. 1, Georgia rolled to a 4-0 win. That set up the fitting finale between the Bulldogs and Aggies.
With two teams so evenly matched and familiar with one another, the doubles point was sure to be critical. Georgia got a quick win at the No. 2 spot, as Guillermina Grant and Anastasiia Lopata rolled to a 6-2 victory. Aysegul Mert and Hayden Mulberry then clinched the point with a 7-5 win at No. 3, putting the Bulldogs ahead 1-0 heading to singles.
At No. 1 was a heavyweight bout between Georgia's Dasha Vidmanova and A&M's Mary Stoiana, who have battled one another for four years and traded the top spot in the singles rankings all spring. Entering this match, Stoiana was ranked No. 1 and Vidmanova, the fall NCAA singles champion, was No. 2. At the end of two tight sets Sunday, Vidmanova prevailed 6-4, 6-4, to make it 2-0 Bulldogs.
Lopata's match at No. 2 against Nicole Khirin didn't get off to a great start, with Khirin winning the first six games of the match. But resiliency is one of Lopata's greatest strengths, and she was able to rally for an 0-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory.
"I had already lost one time a first set 6-0 in the SEC tournament, so I thought 'Okay, maybe I'll be okay, too,'" Lopata said. "The team needs me and everyone was still playing. I knew that I just needed to lock in and keep fighting and just win."
And she did just that. The Bulldogs were one win away from the program's first title since 2000, and they were in a good position to get a win in any of the remaining four matches. All four were tight, and three of them were in third sets.
The clinching victory came at No. 6, where Sofia Rojas dropped the first set against Lexington Reed before storming back for a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 win. After Reed's forehand sailed wide on match point, Rojas and her teammates were dancing around in circles on the court.
A brilliant season was complete. The outstanding careers of seniors Vidmanova, Grant and Mell Reasco were fittingly capped off with the only trophy they hadn't won. And for Vidmanova, she now heads toward her professional career as one of the most accomplished players in college tennis history. She's only the third woman ever to win NCAA team, singles and doubles titles.
"I was surprised, I thought I was the first one. I'm just kidding," she said. "It's obviously very special to do that, to do that for Georgia. And I'm just very happy that we won."
At the end of the 2023 season, legendary head coach Jeff Wallace retired, and the torch was passed to Bernstein, his longtime associate head coach. How's that working out? Bernstein inherited a great squad that he helped recruit and develop, and in the past two seasons Georgia has won outright or shared three SEC titles, reached two NCAA finals, won the ITA National Indoor championship and won an NCAA team title — plus an NCAA singles title for Vidmanova and an NCAA doubles title in 2024 for Vidmanova and Mert.
The women's tennis championship was the cherry on top of a stellar weekend for Georgia sports. On Saturday, the top-ranked women's track team won the SEC Outdoor Championships title, and the fifth-ranked men's team placed second. That same day, the fourth-ranked baseball team closed out its regular season by winning its series against A&M and is in an excellent position to be one of the eight national seeds in the NCAA tournament.
Before women's tennis took the court against the Aggies Sunday, Georgia's softball team was facing No. 14 Duke in the finals of the NCAA Durham Regional. The Bulldogs dropped the first game, setting up a winner-take-all second, and got behind 2-0 in the finale. Georgia scored a run in the sixth, tied the game in the seventh, and then scored three runs in the top of the eighth to prevail 5-2 and advance to next week's Super Regional at No. 3 Florida.
Weekends don't get much better for Georgia. For the women's tennis team, seasons don't get much better.
Assistant Sports Communications Director 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: Frierson Files.
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