Georgia women's tennis ousted in NCAA tournament semifinals by Texas A&M
Georgia women's tennis was denied a chance to repeat for the national title Saturday night when Texas A&M beat the top seed Bulldogs in a tight match.
New year, new site, same high-stakes matchup for Georgia women’s tennis and Texas A&M. They met in Stillwater, Okla. in 2024 and Waco, Texas in 2025 with a national title on the line with the teams splitting.
This time, the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens was the setting for a raucous, tight NCAA Championships semifinal on Saturday night May 16 that came down to a battle on court 1. Texas A&M’s Lucciana Perez, the nation’s No. 1 player, held off a charge from Anastasiia Lopata to clinch the 4-3 win for the No.
4 seed Aggies over the top-seeded Bulldogs . It denied Georgia a chance to repeat as national champions. Both Perez and Lopata battled what appeared to be cramps with Lopata taking an injury time out to get attended to by a trainer during the first game of the third set.
Perez won 6-1, 6-7 (7-5), 6-3, nailing a backhand winner to tie the third set at 3 and then breaking Lopata’s serve. When Lopata hit the ball out to end the match, Bulldogs coach Drake Bernstein gave her a hug on the court. Georgia beat Texas A&M for the NCAA title in 2025 in Waco 4-0 but the Aggies won the championship, 4-1, in 2024 in Stillwater, Okla Texas A&M (27-5) became the first team to reach three straight championship matches since Stanford from 2016-19.