Junior Caroline Brinson claimed both the doubles and the match clincher, leading the fourth-ranked Georgia women’s tennis team (14-2, 7-1) to a 4-0 victory over No. 24 Arkansas (15-8, 4-4) on Thursday night at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex.
The win extended Georgia’s home win streak to 18 matches, a stretch that extends to the 2014 postseason. The Bulldogs earned their second sweep of the conference season and their seventh consecutive sweep over Arkansas.
“First of all I have to give a shout out to our doubles,” said Georgia head coach Jeff Wallace. “I thought we played a lot better doubles today. We’ve been working hard in practice on it, and our players really did a great job. Then I thought we had some great singles matches with Arkansas. It came down to Caroline’s court, and the main thing is to stay aggressive in those situations.”
The Bulldogs quickly took the doubles point, winning the first court 6-3 and the third court by a 6-4 tally. The 25th-ranked duo of Ellen Perez and Mariana Gould recorded its seventh win of the year on the top court while the No. 3 court was won by the pairing of Brinson and Laura Patterson, their first match together in the spring.
The home squad kept the momentum through singles play as No. 56 Kennedy Shaffer extended the team’s lead to 2-0 with a dominant 6-3, 6-1 win on the second court. Her win over 83rd-ranked Ana Oparenovic was her team-leading 14th singles win of the spring campaign.
Perez continued her SEC tour de force on the top court with her eighth win in conference play, this time besting 88th-ranked Yuliya Lysa 7-6, 6-2 to give Georgia a 3-0 team lead. With her singles win, the Shellharbour, Australia native has still won her singles match in every conference contest.
Brinson then ended the match, winning a 6-2, 7-6 decision on the fourth court to extend Georgia’s home win streak to 18 matches.
The Bulldogs will host 71st-ranked Missouri on Saturday at noon.
RESULTS
No. 4 Georgia 4, No. 24 Arkansas 0
Doubles
#25 Perez/Gould (UGA) def. Lysa/Hudson (UA), 6-3
#63 Garcia/Shaffer (UGA) vs. Craft/Araujo (UA) 5-3, unfinished
Brinson/Patterson (UGA) def. Jurasic/Oparenovic (UA), 6-4
Singles
#7 Ellen Perez (UGA) def. #88 Yuliya Lysa (UA), 7-6, 6-2
#56 Kennedy Shaffer (UGA) def. #83 Ana Oparenovic (UA), 6-3, 6-1
#79 Silvia Garcia (UGA) vs. Shannon Hudson (UA), 3-6, 3-4, unfinished
#27 Caroline Brinson (UGA) def. Makenzie Craft (UA), 6-2, 7-6
Mariana Gould (UGA) vs. Mia Jurasic (UA), 2-2, unfinished
Laura Patterson (UGA) vs. Sasha Shkorupeieva (UA), 2-1, unfinished
Georgia (14-2, 7-1), Arkansas (15-8, 4-4)
Order of finish: Doubles (1,3); Singles (2,1,4)
GO DAWGS: TAKE DOWN THE HAWGS.