Strong singles play led the top-seeded Georgia Gwinnett College men's tennis team to rally past No. 5-seed William Carey University (Mississippi) 4-1 in Saturday afternoon's semifinal match of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's NAIA Indoor National Championship in Overland Park, Kansas.

William Carey (1-1) captured the doubles point by winning a tiebreaker, 7-4, on the No. 2 court. The Crusaders opened the match with a 6-2 victory at No. 3 doubles.

GGC (4-0) mounted a doubles rally with the duo of senior Jeremias Rocco and junior Santiago Villarruel winning a tiebreaker by a 7-2 score at the top of the lineup. But that rally was halted by WCU's pairing of Ismoil Hayriddinov and Islam Orynbasar capturing the match on the No. 2 court.

This marked the first time that the Grizzlies had lost the doubles point in a match this spring, necessitating four singles victories to advance to the tournament finale.

The team quickly mounted its comeback by winning the first set in four of the six singles matches.

Villarruel led the charge behind a convincing 6-0, 6-1 win over Hayriddinov on the No. 3 court. GGC took its first lead of the match, at 2-1, as junior Luis Francisco Sampedro defeated Phil Louis Steinbichler by 6-1, 6-2 scores at No. 4 singles.

Senior Aleksandr Kalinin continued the positive momentum in his No. 2 match, winning the last five games of the second set to complete a 6-3, 7-5 triumph against Matt Shearer. That victory extended GGC's lead to 3-1 in the semifinal matchup.

The comeback was culminated with strong play from senior Andoni Garmendia resulting in a 6-3, 6-4 victory against WCU's Artur Ibragimov on the No. 5 court.

Georgia Gwinnett College has advanced to the ITA NAIA championship match for the third straight season.
 
Coach's Corner
"The men continued to show a great Grizz spirit. It takes a full-team effort to come back from a 1-0 deficit. Attitude is everything and we showed that today, especially in our singles matches (posting four wins). Aleksandr had a big comeback, from being down 5-2 to winning by a 7-5 score. I'm proud of the team and we're ready to compete again for a national title," said Head Coach Hannah Keeling.
 
Up Next
Georgia Gwinnett College is scheduled to play No. 3 seed Tennessee Wesleyan University in the ITA NAIA tournament's championship match on Sunday, February 1, starting at 7:30 p.m.