Special from
College Tennis Today
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Record attendance, finals that came down to the last match and players gushing over their experience in Rome, Ga., were just a few of the storylines of this year's ACC Men's and Women's Tennis Championships. Play wrapped up on Sunday with Virginia claiming the men's title and North Carolina scoring a comeback win to take the women's championship.
As the teams pulled up to the
Rome Tennis Center at Berry College early in the week in their buses, SUVs and vans, there were plenty unknowns for a conference championship being held at a brand new tennis center with only five months to prepare.
The ACC had held their tennis championships in Cary, North Carolina, for the past eight years, but in October, ACC officials made the decision to move all of its neutral site championship events out of North Carolina in protest of state law, HB 2, requiring people in publicly-owned buildings to use restrooms that correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificate.
Opened July 29, 2016, the Rome Tennis Center and its 30 acres would now host student athletes from 28 ACC programs along with coaches and support staff. The city-owned facility was built on property donated by Berry College.
With organizers offering a facility with plenty of practice courts, dozens of hardworking volunteers and Southern hospitality permeating from every corner of the city of 35,000 residents in Northwest Georgia, this was a win-win for everyone involved with the event's execution, operations and planning.
