Georgia men’s tennis earns two more NCAA singles bids after ITA South Sectional

Georgia men’s tennis had a solid showing at the ITA South Sectional, hosted by Florida State, where junior Andrew Delgado and sophomore Noah Johnston qualified for the NCAA Singles Championships taking place later this month. Delgado, a first-year Bulldog after transferring from Wake Forest , came back against Vanderbilt’s seventh-seeded Hugo Coquelin in round one, taking the second and third sets to advance. Miami’s Jakub Kroslak took Delgado to an early tiebreaker in round two, but he closed it out and won in straight sets. Another first-set tiebreaker in the quarterfinals didn’t bother Delgado either, taking the win again in straight sets over Tyler Bowers of Auburn. With the win, Delgado secured his spot in the NCAA Singles Championships by reaching the semifinals. Johnston met Delgado in the semifinal on the same side of the bracket, but instead of playing a match against his teammate, they were able to celebrate a shared victory. To get there, fifth-seeded Johnston dispatched Kentucky’s Rafael Ymer in the first round. He dropped a set in the process, but it was his first and last loss in the tournament. In the second round, Johnston faced Moritz Kudernatsch of Ole Miss who went down in straight sets. The same fate awaited Jacksonville State’s Marko Milosavljevic in the quarterfinal; Johnston advanced with ease, earning his spot at the NCAA Singles Championships. Three more Bulldogs made it down to Tallahassee: Cooper Johnson, Gabriele Vulpitta and Maxime Dubouch. After taking a hard-fought first round loss to eighth-seeded Vlado Jankanj of Ole Miss in three sets, Johnson netted two wins in consolation play, with an asterisk. He received an injury walkover against Florida State’s Gabor Hornung and advanced via bye to the quarterfinals. There, he bested Gianluca Carlini of Georgia Tech in straight sets before falling to Ole Miss’s Mason Landreth in a three-set semifinal. Vulpitta recorded an opening-round victory over Kentucky’s Tom Sickenberger, but then ran into some misfortune in the second round. While trailing 6-3 to Azariah Rusher of Florida State in the first set, Vulpitta was forced to retire due to an injury, which ended his tournament. This also spelled doom for Vulpitta and Delgado in doubles. The pair dropped their opening round match to Luciano Alcocer and Gabriel Garay of Troy in a tough three sets despite a No. 1 seed, but were set to compete in the consolation draw. After successful walkovers pushed the two all the way to the consolation final, they were unable to take the court due to injury of their own. Dubouch and Johnston also couldn’t net a win in the main doubles draw, falling in straight sets to Luigi Valletta and Diego Duran of Mississippi State. They didn’t have better luck in consolation play either, going down to Indiana’s Matteo Antonescu and Sam Scherer. Dubouch and Julian Alonso both earned Georgia’s first two NCAA Singles Championship bids at the ITA Southeast Regional in October. Now, they’ll be joined by Delgado and Johnston at the Dan Magill Complex in Athens, where the tournament will be held for the first time since 2017, starting Nov. 17.