University of Georgia Team Page
ATHENS, Ga. --- The Georgia men’s tennis team – which advanced to the NCAA semifinals last week in Urbana, Ill. – comes in at No. 3 in the final team ranking of 2013 released Tuesday afternoon by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).
National champion Virginia took the top spot at No. 1, followed by runner-up UCLA, Georgia, Ohio State, and Southern California to round out the top-five.
The Bulldogs (26-5) conclude the season having been ranked inside the top-five in the poll for eight out of 16 editions, and inside the top-three for the final five weeks of the season. In head coach Manuel Diaz’s 25 years at the helm, Georgia has finished as a top-five team 19 times, including six of the last eight seasons.
Georgia lost to Virginia in the “Final Four” on May 20, snapping the Bulldogs’ 17-match winning streak. The Bulldogs won the SEC regular season and tournament titles and recorded a 20-win season for the 10th year in a row, while the team saw two players – doubles partners Ben Wagland and Hernus Pieters – garner All-America honors by entering the individual tournament as No. 5-8 seeds and reaching the quarterfinals. Georgia has now seen 45 different players earn 88 All-America awards dating back to 1971. In the Diaz era, 32 players have pulled in 68 such honors.
Final singles and doubles national rankings will be released next Wed., June 5.