By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
It was March Madness but it wasn’t the NCAA Championship and wasn’t even basketball.
The men’s tennis teams from the University of Georgia and the University of Tennessee played in one of the great college matches in recent memory at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Georgia on Saturday, March 18 with the No. 10-ranked Bulldogs edging the No. 18-ranked Volunteers 4-3.
I threw out that what transpired in Athens may have been the greatest comeback in college tennis history and possibly the closest college tennis match of all time as Georgia saved, according to reports, six team match points on two different courts after trailing 3-1. The win for Georgia ended with Bulldog Phil Henning winning the decisive match with the score knotted at 3-3 in a decisive final-set tiebreaker 8-6.
There have been many times in college tennis where teams have come back to win after facing a team match point against them and even multiple team match points, but has a team ever come back to win after saving team match points in TWO separate matches? And was there ever a match on top of that where a total of six team match points (or more) were saved? You can’t find a match that was any closer than a decisive match being decided by an 8-6 decisive match tiebreaker. That is unless you go back to the days of the sudden-death nine-point tiebreaker and if a team match was ever decided with a sudden-death point at 4-4 in a decisive tiebreaker in the decisive match. Please comment on this story, tweet me at @TennisPublisher or email me at RandolphSWalker@gmail.com if you can cite a bigger college tennis comeback win or a similar close match.
After Tennessee won the doubles point to earn a 1-0 lead, it quickly increased its lead to 2-0 after 21-year-old Brit Johannus Monday (ATP No. 564) defeated 19-year-old Californian Ethan Quinn (ATP No. 473) at No. 1 singles by a 6-2, 6-2 scoreline. Miguel Perez Pena of Georgia cut the lead to 2-1 with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Pat Harper of Tennessee at No. 6. Shunsuke Mitsui then put the Vols up 3-1 on the verge of victory with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Georgia’s Blake Croyder at No. 4.
Tennessee appeared at this point about to push through to victory, needing to win only one of the remaining three singles matches and then had won the first sets at No. 2 singles and No. 3 singles and were battling in a close match at No. 5 singles. At No. 3 singles, according to people at the match, Georgia’s Trent Bryde was fighting off two match points in the second set tiebreaker against Blaise Bicknell, but won an 10-8 second-set tiebreaker to keep Georgia’s hopes alive. He had already saved a team match point at the sudden-death deuce point at 5-6 in the second set, according to people at the match. Then, Teodor Giusca of Georgia beat Angel Diaz at No. 5 singles 7-6(3), 7-6(2) to cut the Tennessee lead to 3-2. At No. 2 singles, Henning won the second set 6-3, after losing the first set 6-3, to force a decisive third set as he and Bryde battled side-by-side on courts 2 and 3, respectively inside the Henry Field Stadium courts. Tennessee just needed to win one of the two remaining matches and Georgia needed to win both. As Bryde and Bicknell battled into the third set at No. 3, Tennessee’s Emile Hudd held triple team match point against Henning at No. 2 with Henning serving at 4-5, 15-40 (with the deuce point being a sudden-death point in college tennis). It was fourth, fifth and sixth team match points for Tennessee on its second court by its second player. Henning was able to save all three points by battling through long baseline points to even the score at 5-5, according to people at the match. After both players held serve, a final-set tiebreaker would decide the match. As Henning and Hudd battled point by point, Bryde, who was suffering from cramps, was able to break serve benefitting from winning the match on a point penalty as Bicknell was overruled on a line-call for a third time, necessitating a point penalty from the chair umpire, according to people at the match. Just as Bryde won, Henning was at 6-6 in the final-set tiebreaker in the now decisive match. Whoever won the next point would have team match point, which is an incredible scenario. Henning then won two straight points to win the decisive tiebreaker 8-6 and give Georgia the incredible 4-3 victory. Video of the last point can be seen here: https://twitter.com/TennisPublisher/status/1637193434107715584
“I was in a bit of disbelief after the match, honestly,” said Henning of his match-clinching victory.
Said Bryde just after the match, “That was one of the most memorable moments of my life. I still don’t even know what just happened.”
Manny Diaz, Georgia’s head coach since 1989, said the near thousand fans who came to cheer for the Bulldogs provided one of the most enthusiastic environments at the historic Dan Magill Tennis Complex outside of when the venue was the long-time and historic site of the NCAA Championships. The Georgia team had a locker-room victory celebration that rivals any “March Madness” basketball celebration as you can see here: https://twitter.com/TennisPublisher/status/1637249631582126081
Tennessee coach Chris Woodruff, a former NCAA singles champion for Tennessee (defeating Georgia’s Wade McGuire in the final, ironically), has been a part of many college tennis matches as a player and coach and himself was part of an emotional, comeback team victory when he won the decisive comeback match for the U.S. Davis Cup team and Captain John McEnroe against Zimbabwe in front of a hostile crowd in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2000. He provided his perspective on the result in his post-match comments.
“I thought today was a good college tennis match,” he said. “There were lots of ebbs and flows. One team was going to be disappointed at the result and unfortunately, it was us. I’ve been around long enough to know that one, two or three matches don’t define a season. What truly matters is where you are in May. I’d say it won’t be the last time we lock horns with Georgia.”
