Columbia University
Georgia Tech
Men's Tennis Advances in NCAAs, Takes Down Georgia Tech
5/8/2015 5:23:00 PM | Men's Tennis
OXFORD, Miss. – Trailing 1-0 after the doubles point, Columbia men's tennis got wins at the top four singles spots to defeat Georgia Tech, 4-1, in the first round of the NCAA Men's Tennis Championships.
"We've been in this situation before," Howard Endelman, Columbia's Associate Head Coach said. "We lost the doubles point to Tennessee and Notre Dame and came back and won. You never want to lose the doubles point because it does give you a little boost into singles, but we have enough confidence in our singles play that our guys can go out and fight hard even if we don't win the doubles point."
All three doubles matches were hard-fought and took over an hour to play. Georgia Tech went up 1-0 with an 8-5 win at No. 3 doubles and a tie-breaker win (8-7) at No. 2 doubles.
A few of the Lions got off to hot starts in singles, with Mike Vermeer and Ashok Narayana winning their first sets very quickly, 6-1.
Dragos Ignat followed with a 6-2 win at No. 2 in the first set, and Shawn Hadavi followed with a 6-3 loss at No. 5.
Winston Lin was engaged in a small battle at No. 1 singles, but closed out a 6-4 win in the first set. Bert Vancura was grinding out a 6-4 win in the first at No. 6. Vancura's match was the last to enter the second set.
Vermeer took at 5-2 lead in the second set, but Georgia Tech's Michael Kay would not go quietly, using a couple breaks to battle back to 5-4. Vermeer evened up the match at 1-1 with a win at No. 4.
Lin was up 4-2 and survived a short rally by Christopher Eubanks to give the Lions a 2-1 lead with a 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 1.
As Lin was wrapping up his match, Hadavi wore down Cole Fiegel to take the second set 6-4, and Vancura won his first set 6-4.
Ignat lost his second set 6-2 and Narayana was in a tightly contested second set.
Narayana traded breaks with Nathan Rakitt and was serving for match, before Rakitt tied it up at 6-6. Narayana won the tie-break 7-5 to give the Lions a 3-1 lead.
By the time court four was done, Ignat had No. 2 well in-hand, leading 5-1, before closing out the match with the 6-2 third-set win.
"It took us a while to get going," Endelman said. "I think it took these guys some time to get their teeth into the match, but once they did, I thought they were terrific."
The Lions will face the winner of the Ole Miss/Alabama State match at 2 p.m (Eastern).
#17 Columbia 4, #42 Georgia Tech 1
Singles competition
1. #17 Winston Lin (CU) def. #53 Christopher Eubanks (GT) 6-4, 6-4
2. #108 Dragos Ignat (CU) def. Carlos Benito (GT) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2
3. Ashok Narayana (CU) def. Nathan Rakitt (GT) 6-1, 7-6 (7-5)
4. Mike Vermeer (CU) def. Michael Kay (GT) 6-1, 6-4
5. Shawn Hadavi (CU) vs. Cole Fiegel (GT) 3-6, 6-4, 2-1, unfinished
6. Bert Vancura (CU) vs. Eduardo Segura (GT) 6-4, 3-4, unfinished
Doubles competition
1. #46 Winston Lin/Mike Vermeer (CU) vs. Eduardo Segura/Carlos Benito (GT) 6-5, unfinished
2. Michael Kay/Christopher Eubanks (GT) def. #84 Ashok Narayana/Dragos Ignat (CU) 8-7 (7-2)
3. Nathan Rakitt/Cole Fiegel (GT) def. Max Schnur/Bert Vancura (CU) 8-5
Players Mentioned
