Defending champ Georgia wins in first round in NCAA tennis tournament

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) _ Georgia's Brandon Wagner defeated Texas A&M's Keith From 6-4, 7-6, clinching a 4-1 victory for the defending national champions Saturday night in the first round of

Sunday, May 19th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) _ Georgia's Brandon Wagner defeated Texas A&M's Keith From 6-4, 7-6, clinching a 4-1 victory for the defending national champions Saturday night in the first round of the NCAA men's tennis championships.

The top-seeded Bulldogs got a quick jump on Texas A&M with an 8-2 doubles victory by Matias Boeker and Bo Hodge over Ryan Newport and Lester Cook.

Georgia's Bo Hodge and Adam Seri added singles wins before Wagner ended the match.

Khaled El Dorry posted the Aggies' lone point with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Nicolas Boeker.

The Bulldogs are playing away from their home court in the NCAA championships for just the fourth time in the past 26 years. They'll face Pepperdine in Sunday's quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, No. 2 seed Tennessee beat No. 15 Texas 4-0 and No. 11 USC defeated No. 6 Baylor 4-2.

Pepperdine, Kentucky and Illinois advanced into the quarterfinals with wins over Mississippi, Duke and Notre Dame, respectively.

In the late matches, UCLA beat Florida 4-0 and Auburn rallied from a 3-1 deficit against Washington to win 4-3.