Minnesota Tennis: #37 Gophers upset #19 Georgia in NCAA First Round

The Minnesota men’s tennis team upset #19 Georgia in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday in Norman, Oklahoma. The Gophers will now advance to play either #14 Oklahoma or #43 Utah in the second round on Saturday. Its the first time Minnesota has advanced out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament since 2013.

Georgia got out to an early lead in winning two of the three doubles matches and taking the winner takes all point to go ahead 1-0. The teams would then face off in six singles matches with each match being worth a point. Minnesota would jump out to a 2-1 lead when Matic Spec defeated Jan Zielinski 7-6, 6-1 in the #2 singles match and Josip Krstanovic defeated Emil Reinberg 6-4, 6-3 in the #4 singles match. Minnesota would make it a 3-1 lead when Marino Alpena won the #6 singles match 7-6, 7-5.

Georgia would win the #3 and #5 singles matches to tie the competetion at 3-3. it would come down to the #1 singles match between #53 Felix Corwin for Minnesota and #37 Wayne Montgomery for Georgia. Corwin dropped the first set 6-4 and would battle back to win the second 7-6 for force a third set. Corwin would dominate the third set and would clinch the match on an ace to win the third set 6-2.

The Gophers will now play the winner of the host Oklahoma and the Utah at Noon on Saturday. You can follow along with live stats at this LINK. The winner will advance to the round of 16 next weekend. All matches from the final 16 down to the championship will be held next weekend on the campus of Wake Forest University.