Georgia Tech men’s tennis qualifies for NCAA Tournament

Release from Georgia Tech Athletics:

Georgia Tech’s men’s tennis team, coming off a strong performance in the ACC Championship in which it defeated two top-35 teams, received an at-large bid to the NCAA’s 64-team championship field Tuesday. The Yellow Jackets will travel to Oxford, Miss., May 8-9 along with host Ole Miss, Columbia and Alabama State.

Georgia Tech (14-12, 4-8 ACC), No. 55 in the most recent ITA rankings, finished the regular season in 10^th place in the Atlantic Coast Conference after knocking off 8^th-ranked Duke in the regular season finale. But the Yellow Jackets advanced to the semifinals of the ACC Championship, defeating No. 35 Notre Dame, 4-0, in the opening round, then upending No. 14 Virginia Tech, 4-3, in the quarterfinals. No. 11 Wake Forest eliminated Tech, 4-0, in the semifinals.

The Yellow Jackets will face Ivy League automatic qualifier Columbia (14-5) in the opening round at 1 p.m. Eastern time Friday, May 8, while the host Rebels (17-8) will meet SWAC automatic qualifier Alabama State (12-15). The two winners will square off in the second round at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 9, with that winner advancing to the round of 16, beginning May 14 at the Hurd Tennis Center on the campus of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Ole Miss is ranked 13^th nationally, while Columbia is No. 20. The Yellow Jackets are familiar with the Lions, who participated in Tech’s MLK Invitational in mid-January. Tech won five of nine singles matches between the two teams, but Columbia won all three doubles matches. Tech is 3-0 all-time against the Lions in dual matches, with the last meeting occurring in 1971. The Jackets last met Ole Miss in 1988 and are 1-3 against the Rebels. This is Tech’s second trip to Oxford for an NCAA regional, having lost to Auburn in the opening round there in 2003.

The 64-team field includes 31 automatic qualifiers as conference champions and 33 at-large teams. Oklahoma is the No. 1 overall seed and one of the 16 hosts along with Baylor, Duke, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Southern California, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU, UCLA, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.

Georgia Tech has made the NCAA Championship field for the 11^th time under head coach Kenny Thorne and the 15^th time in program history. Tech is the field for the first time since 2011, when the Yellow Jackets advanced out of the regional in Atlanta to the round of 16 before being eliminated. That is the only time Tech has made it out of a regional in the current format of the championship. The Jackets’ deepest run in the NCAAs came in 1994, when Tech won three matches before being eliminated. Tech is 9-14 all-time in NCAA Championship competition.