ATHENS, Ga. — Junior Austin Rapp felt the first rain drops right before his opponent served on match point, and he walked off the court with the match still unfinished.
What had started as a 30-minute lightning stoppage in the NCAA quarterfinal Saturday night turned into a five-hour rain delay characterized by torrential downpour, turbulent wind and tumultuous lightning strikes and thunder claps.
“(During the delay), I just tried to plan properly and just make sure those guys had something good to eat. I anticipated it was going to be a good while,” said Georgia coach Manuel Diaz. “I’ve seen our team in situations like this just kind of lose their focus. We knew that UCLA is an aggressive team, and if we had taken our foot off the gas, they really would’ve blown over us.”
The Bulldogs did what their coach wanted, pushing down on the gas pedal until the Bruins broke down.
Georgia was three combined points away from winning two separate singles matches when Mother Nature struck, but the rain merely delayed those victories.
Once the teams returned to the court roughly seven hours after first serve, the Bulldogs immediately capitalized. Georgia’s Wayne Montgomery, who was two points away from defeating UCLA freshman Evan Zhu at the time of the delay, closed out the Bruin to tie the dual match at one point apiece.
Georgia’s Walker Duncan had a match point against Rapp on court five, but Duncan missed a volley long, sending the set to a tiebreaker. Rapp couldn’t capitalize on his second chance, however, and lost the tiebreaker and the match.
The delay also negatively impacted several closer matches for UCLA.
Junior Logan Staggs was serving at 40-40 down 1-2 in his second set, and he said the rain delay stopped his momentum and allowed his opponent to refocus and re-energize.
The impact was more drastic on court four, where sophomore Maxime Cressy was immediately broken by the Bulldogs’ Jan Zielinski to start his third set once play resumed. Cressy dropped each of his first three service games, and Zielinski eventually claimed Georgia’s clinching point.
“We went to the hotel, got some food, took a shower, took some time with our athletic trainers and just thought about the strategies,” Zielinski said. “I think (Cressy) broke down in the final set while I came out with a lot of energy.”
One Bruin who benefited from the break was junior Martin Redlicki, who lost his second set 6-1 behind a bevy of service faults and forehand errors. Redlicki said the delay helped him reset mentally and physically – he then broke Georgia’s Nathan Ponwith in their first game back on the court and cruised to a 6-2 third-set win.
“It was in a way a godsend for me because I had a mental and physical lapse in the second set,” Redlicki said. “Getting away for a little bit, being able to rest, recuperate and get my game plan back together, I felt like I was able to come out with a clear head and not really worry about the second set as much. It was kind of a new match.”
Although Redlicki said he felt like it was a new match, Georgia was able to seize the initiative on the other courts, and the Bulldogs rained on the Bruins’ NCAA hopes.