Saturday was Senior Day for Kentucky men\u2019s tennis, but it was a junior who stole the spotlight.<\/p>\n
Louisville\u2019s own Eli Stephenson<\/a> produced a highlight play worthy of making the SportsCenter Top 10 during the Wildcats\u2019 4-3 win over No. 12 Georgia in Lexington. In the midst of a match that lasted over four hours, Stephenson won a singles point against Georgia\u2019s Arda Azkara by jumping over the net and slamming the ball onto Azkara\u2018s side. The St. Xavier<\/a> alum, ranked 24th nationally in singles<\/a>, went on to beat Azkara 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5).<\/p>\n There are debates online questioning whether this move was legal and if the point should have counted or not (KSR\u2019s Drew Franklin \u2014 former Tennis Channel employee \u2014 leans yes<\/a>), but the judge ruled it in Kentucky\u2019s favor. That\u2019s all we care about. Stephenson even received some love from former player\/current tennis broadcaster Patrick McEnroe<\/a> for his athletic display. <\/p>\n Stephenson\u2019s quick thinking played only a small part in Kentucky rallying back from a 3-1 deficit. The \u2018Cats claimed the final three singles courts to upset the 12th-ranked Bulldogs, UK\u2019s best win of the season. Seniors Martin Breysach, Charlelie Cosnet, and Jaden Weekes were all celebrated ahead of time, but juniors Matt Rankin, Jack Loutit, and Stephenson logged the Wildcats\u2019 singles points. Kentucky had lost four matches this season in final set tiebreakers before ending that streak against UGA.<\/p>\n Kentucky (15-10; 5-7 SEC) will close out the regular season on the road next week, traveling to No. 7 LSU on Friday, April 10, and No. 24 Ole Miss on Sunday, April 12. The SEC Men\u2019s Tennis Championship will follow on Wednesday, April 15, in College Station, TX. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday was Senior Day for Kentucky men\u2019s tennis, but it was a junior who stole the spotlight. Louisville\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-567263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}