#10 Georgia Downs #39 MSU 4-1 At SEC Tennis Championship
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- After losing a very close opening doubles point, Mississippi State's 11th-seeded and 39th-ranked men's tennis team could not muster a comeback effort to overcome third-seeded and 10th-ranked Georgia Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the 2004 Southeastern Conference Championship, as UGA posted a 4-1 win over MSU.
The loss dropped MSU to 8-13 overall. UGA improved to 16-5.
In doubles, the teams traded wins at the top two positions, leaving the point to be decided at No. 3. State's Matt Armstrong and Jose-Carlos Pinto were up a break at 6-4 and had three break point chances for a 7-4 lead. But UGA's duo of Ricardo Gonzales and Matic Omerzel fought off those challenges and then went on to take the next three games for an 8-6 victory.
The Bulldogs from Athens would ride the momentum from that point into singles action, taking the first set at five of the six positions, and would never really look back after that.
UGA went up 2-0 in the match when 13th-ranked Bo Hodge downed MSU's 35th-ranked Romain Ambert 6-3, 6-3 at the No. 1 position. Georgia took a 3-0 lead with a win from Strahinja Bobusic by the same score at the No. 5 spot over State's Max Fomine. MSU finally got on the board when true freshman Arnaud Roussel finished off a 6-3, 7-5 triumph over Gonzales at the No. 6 position to trim the UGA advantage to 3-1.
But Matias Ormaza would close out the win for Georgia, completing a 6-3, 6-3 victory over MSU's Florent Girod at the No. 4 spot. In the remaining matches, MSU had just split sets and led 1-0 early in the third at No. 2, and UGA led 6-2, 6-5 at No. 3, the score standing on serve in the second set of that contest.
"I don't think we played our best tennis today, but we still gave ourselves a chance in this match," MSU head coach Sylvain Guichard said. "Georgia really came out firing after getting the momentum with the doubles point and I think things would have been different if we had been able to get that first point. It was tough for us to find the same intensity today after finally get over the hump yesterday with a win.
"But I am extremely proud of our guys' effort this weekend. They got a great win over Tennessee yesterday that will be important in helping us get into the NCAA Championship, and they also tried hard today against a good Georgia team."
State will learn its NCAA fate May 5, when the 64-team field for the 2004 NCAA Men's Tennis Team Championship is announced. The selection show for the tournament will be aired on ESPN News that day at 3:45 p.m. CT. MSU is one of only seven schools in the country that has made 13 consecutive NCAA appearances in men's tennis.
#10 GEORGIA 4, #39 MISSISSIPPI STATE 1
DOUBLES - #3 Bo Hodge/John Isner (UGA) def. Luiz Carvalho/Florent Girod (MSU) 8-5; Romain Ambert/Max Fomine (MSU) def. Strahinja Bobusic/Matias Ormaza (UGA) 8-2; Ricardo Gonzales/Matic Omerzel (UGA) def. Matt Armstrong/Jose-Carlos Pinto (MSU) 8-6.
SINGLES - #13 Hodge (UGA) def. #35 Ambert (MSU) 6-3, 6-3; Pinto (MSU) vs. #77 Isner (UGA) 3-6, 6-4, 1-0, susp.; Carvalho (MSU) vs. Omerzel (UGA) 2-6, 5-6, susp.; Ormaza (UGA) def. Girod (MSU) 6-3, 6-3; Bobusic (UGA) def. Fomine (MSU) 6-3, 6-3; Arnaud Roussel (MSU) def. Gonzales (UGA) 6-3, 7-5.
(numbers preceding names are current national rankings)