swept Elon<\/a> on Friday to reach Saturday\u2019s contest, and doubles play followed a similar script.<\/p>\nDerrick Chen and Noah Johnston were first off the court for the second consecutive match, securing a 6-2 victory over Charlie Camus and Ainius Sabaliauskas.<\/p>\n
The No. 3-ranked duo of Arda Azkara and Santiago Giamichelle then clinched the doubles point for Georgia with a 6-2 win against William Manning and Jules Leroux. The point proved crucial as singles play featured several tightly contested matches.<\/p>\n
Georgia started slowly in singles, with only one Bulldog capturing the first set.<\/p>\n
That player was senior Chen, who was once again first off the court after a dominant performance. He opened both sets by winning four consecutive games and defeated Sabaliauskas 6-2, 6-3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every other Georgia singles player that dropped the opening set fought back and forced a third. No. 36 Jansen and Giamichelle both had tough tiebreak losses in the first set but rallied back in the second.<\/p>\n
Johnston rebounded from a slow start to extend Georgia\u2019s lead to 3-0 with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory. The freshman has continued to pile up singles wins and now leads the team with 18.<\/p>\n
After cruising through the second set and earning an early break in the third, Azkara put himself in a position to clinch the match on Court 1. On Court 6, a similar scene unfolded as Gabriele Vulpitta rallied to force a deciding set of his own.<\/p>\n
A tense crowd watched as both matches simultaneously reached third-set tiebreaks. Each Bulldog built a 5-2 lead, leaving the question of who would finish first.<\/p>\n
Attention shifted to Azkara as he powered through a rally to move within one point of victory. He sealed the match, defeating No. 30 Martin Borisiouk and sending Georgia through to the third round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The win avenged Georgia\u2019s loss to NC State in last year\u2019s NCAA Tournament and advanced the Bulldogs to the NCAA Starkville Super Regional against No. 5 Mississippi State next weekend. One more win would send Georgia back home as Athens is set to host the championships for the final eight teams standing.<\/p>\n
Georgia previously fell to Mississippi State in Starkville, Mississippi on March 8, 2026, setting up another opportunity for redemption with a trip to the quarterfinals on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, Georgia men\u2019s tennis fell to NC State in the second round of the NCAA Team Championships…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[634,64,63,294062,294065,294063,105187,313146,313147,294064,85,747],"class_list":["post-647251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-american-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dan-magill","tag-former-southern-conference-teams","tag-former-southern-intercollegiate-athletic-association-teams","tag-georgia-u-s-state","tag-ncaa-division-i-championships","tag-ncaa-division-i-men","tag-southeastern-conference-teams","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}