‘A Hell Of A Two Weeks’
May 22, 2025 | Men's Tennis, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Forty years ago, on May 21, 1985, the Georgia men's tennis program finally broke through and delivered its legendary coach, Dan Magill, the one thing missing from his lengthy resume: an NCAA team championship. But the Bulldogs weren't done once they knocked off UCLA, 5-1, in front of a pack of rabid fans at Henry Feild Stadium.
Five days after Georgia's players celebrated the best moment in program history, two Bulldogs — defending champion Mikael Pernfors and George Bezecny — went head-to-head in the finals of the NCAA singles tournament.
"That was a hell of a two weeks," said Bezecny, who played No. 2 singles for Georgia and was seeded seventh in the singles draw.
Winning a title for Magill, said Pernfors, the 1984 NCAA singles champion, "was a major reason why I came back for my last year after winning the title the year before. We knew we had an opportunity to win it all our senior year."
Magill and assistant coach Manuel Diaz had built the Bulldogs into one of the few programs in the country that could challenge the California power trio of Stanford, USC and UCLA. Those three had dominated the sport for more than 25 years; in fact, 1985 marked the first time in 26 years that none of the big three powerhouses had won an NCAA team, singles or doubles championship.
Georgia won the team title by beating Stanford in the quarterfinals, USC in the semis and UCLA in the final. In the individual draws, the Pepperdine duo of Kelly Jones and Carlos DiLaura won the doubles and the singles title came down to Pernfors and Bezecny. They were part of the Bulldogs' key senior quartet, along with Allen Miller and Deane Frey, and they were also roommates.
The night before the final, the roommates had dinner together. The next morning, they had breakfast before warming up together. It was all normal, or at least something close to it.
"It was fine," Bezecny said. "I didn't stay at our apartment the night before; I stayed at my parents' hotel, but that had nothing to do with Mikael. I'm a light sleeper and I was afraid of the noise around us in our Morton Square apartment."
Bezecny was a good player for Georgia in his first three years, but his game really took off his senior year. The 1985 NCAA singles tournament was the only one he qualified for in his career, and he advanced all the way to the final.
"I knew how great of a player George was because we'd played so much in practice and in the finals of other tournaments," Pernfors said. "I think part of why he got so much better was that he started believing in himself."
By the time Pernfors and Bezecny had helped the Bulldogs win the team title and played five rounds of singles to get to the final, they were pretty physically and mentally spent, especially Bezecny. Back then, the men's and women's tournaments were separate events, and the team and individual NCAAs in Athens in 1985 were held over eight days, with no days off.
The night before the team final, Bezecny was actually at a local hospital getting treated for dehydration. "To this day, I don't know how I even played that match," he recalled back in 2017.
On the final day of the 1985 NCAAs, with a crowd of 4,457 in attendance for the all-Bulldog singles final, Pernfors and Bezecny took the court. With Magill and Diaz proudly watching from the stands — they let their guys duke it out on their own, without any coaching — a weird and wonderful day of Georgia tennis took place.
"I thought it was funny to see that they were up there with their feet up, just kind of watching," Bezecny said. "For me, it was actually nice that Georgia was going to win no matter what. Georgia was assured of another national title that day."
Bulldog tennis fans have long been known for their passion and volume, and they certainly helped Georgia in the team event, but they clearly didn't know how to feel as Pernfors rolled to a 6-2, 6-3 win. They politely cheered, but the fire was absent because to cheer for one was to root against the other.
While Bezecny was well below 100% physically, Pernfors was the best player in college tennis that year, as he was the year before, and one of the best ever. With his win over Bezecny, he became the first repeat NCAA singles champion since USC's Dennis Ralston in 1963-64.
"I'd lost to him twice before (during tournaments) in the year, and we'd had a three-setter that was a war, but this match was disappointing to me," Bezecny said.
As he said that, Bezecny was seated in the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. In front of him was a television playing home video footage of the final that he'd brought. Forty years later, watching Bezecny watch himself struggle against his friend, teammate and roommate, you can tell that the nature of the loss still bothers him a little.
"I just felt like I could have done better," said Bezecny, who has spent most of the last four decades coaching in Florida.
Few could have.
One year after beating Bezecny in the NCAA singles final, an unseeded Pernfors beat the likes of Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Henri Leconte to reach the finals of the 1986 French Open, where he lost to Ivan Lendl. In September of '86, about 16 months after playing his last match for Georgia, Pernfors was ranked No. 10 in the world.
Pernfors retired from professional tennis in 1996, but he still plays in exhibitions and corporate events. He also plays a lot of pickleball, even teaming up with Lendl — they both live in Vero Beach, Fla. — from time to time. Pernfors was inducted into the ITA Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Bulldogs won the team title again in 1987, the year before Magill retired and Diaz took over. Diaz took the program to even greater heights, winning four NCAA team titles and two ITA National Team Indoor championships before retiring after the 2024 season. In 2001, Matias Boeker became the first Bulldog to win the triple crown: the NCAA team, singles and doubles titles in the same year. The following year, he matched Pernfors with a second straight NCAA singles title.
Georgia has produced a lot of champions and championship teams, but the 1985 team was the first to break through and take its place alongside the California powerhouses. And the Bulldogs couldn't have done it without Pernfors and Bezecny, whose NCAA finals matchup was both a testament to Georgia's greatness that year and a tough way to end the season.
"I always felt that it was almost unfair that we had to play each other," Pernfors said. "If George had played anybody else that match, it would have been so much different, with the crowd and just the feeling around that match. Because we had to play each other, it was kind of like anti-climactic. It didn't really live up to the hype in the sense that there was no rivalry.
"We were just great friends and roommates playing each other. It was very difficult."
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.
