Georgia women’s tennis ousted in NCAA tournament semifinals by Texas A&M

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. The Aggies returned to the courts after getting pushed until 12:25 a.m. Saturday in a 4-3 win against North Carolina in the quarterfinals.

They will meet Auburn, playing in its first NCAA finals, at 7 p.m. Sunday.

Georgia (22-6) started strong by securing the doubles point—its fifth straight–with wins on court 1 with Lopata and Patricija Paukstyte, 6-2, and on court 2 behind Deniz Dilek and Aysegul Mart, 6-3.

Fans got loud and offered: “UGA! UGA!” chants to try to energize the Bulldogs when Texas A&M started strong in singles.

It paid off on court 3 where Texas A&M’s Ilinca Amariei’s was unnerved by the crowd and the Romanian lost a first set tiebreaker to Deniz Dilek 7-6 (7-3).

Dilek made it 2-0 Georgia by cruising 6-1 in the second set before Texas A&M’s Mia Kupres got a Texas A&M point with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Murt on court 2, but freshman Emma Dong soon made it 3-1 Georgia with a 7-6, 6-1 decision against Lexington Reed on court 4.

Violeta Martinez rallied for a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 win over Georgia’s Sofia Rojas on court 5 to cut the lead to 3-2 and it was tied 3-3 when Aggie Daria Smetannikov got past Paukstyte 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.

Texas A&M returned to the courts after getting pushed until 12:25 a.m. Sunday in a 4-3 win against North Carolina in the quarterfinals.

Georgia beat Texas A&M in College Station on March 12, but the Aggies won the rematch in Athens late Saturday night.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia women’s tennis upset by Texas A&M in NCAA semifinals in Athens