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NCAA Women's Tennis Championships: Stanford, UCLA on to Round of 16

by Sarah Kezele
May 12, 2018
Stanford Athletics / Scott Chandler

The second round of the 2018 NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships saw Stanford and UCLA advance to the Round of 16, while Oregon’s season came to a close.

[Related: 2018 NCAA Women's Tennis Championships bracket (NCAA.com)]

Oregon

The Ducks exited the postseason with a 4-2 loss to Duke, the tournament’s third overall seed and the ACC’s regular-season champions.

In doubles play, Oregon claimed court 2 (6-2) around the same time that Duke won court 3 (6-4), putting the focus on court 1. Duke’s Kaitlyn McCarthy and Ellyse Hamlin eventually beat out Shweta Sangwan and Julia Eshet (6-4) to grab the doubles point.

Eshet suffered a loss in singles play as well (6-2, 6-3), going down on court 5 to give the Blue Devils a 2-0 team lead. But the Ducks fought back with back-to-back wins from Sangwan (6-1, 6-2) on court 2 and Paiton Wagner (6-4, 6-3) on court 6 to tie it all up at 2-2.

Duke finally put Oregon away with a close win on court 4 (Kelly Chen over Daniela Nasser: 6-3, 6-2) and the clincher on court 3 (Kaitlyn McCarthy over Julia Lilien: 7-6, 6-1).

Oregon’s season concludes with a 16-10 team record, while Alyssa Tobita continues her senior campaign in the NCAA singles tournament starting May 23.

 

Stanford

Established in 1999, the Round of 16 has been part of the NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships for 19 seasons now. With Saturday’s 4-0 win over Michigan in Saturday’s second round, the Cardinal is moving on to the Round of 16 for the 19th consecutive season.

Stanford, the reigning NCAA runners-up, had to dig deep to clinch the doubles point after courts 1 and 2 resulted in a split. Melissa Lord and Janice Shin rattled off seven straight points on court 3 after trailing 5-0 in the tiebreaker. Their comeback won the court and the doubles point for the Cardinal.

On to singles, where No. 15 seed Stanford finished four of the six first sets on top. That put the Cardinal in prime position to close out the match unblemished, and did exactly that with second-set wins on court 6 (Emma Higuchi: 6-1, 6-0), court 2 (Lord: 6-1, 6-2) and court 5 (Shin, 6-4, 6-1).

Stanford returns to the court Thursday, May 17 for a showdown with No. 2 seed North Carolina.

 

UCLA

Saturday’s action concluded with the 12th-seeded UCLA Bruins getting a 4-0 win over Baylor in Los Angeles.

An impressive streak for one doubles pair remained intact as Alaina Miller and Ena Shibahara beat their Bears opponent on court 3 (6-3), extending their unbeaten streak to 17 consecutive matches. Because UCLA’s Terri Fleming and Jada Hart dropped their match on court 1 (6-4), it was up to juniors Gabby Andrews and Ayan Broomfield to nab the doubles point. They got it done with a 6-4 victory on court 2.

In singles play, Alaina Miller brought the Bruins’ team total to 2-0 following a 6-3, 6-3 result on court 6 over Baylor’s Angelina Shakhraichuk. Shibahara did work on court 1, turning out a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Theresa Van Zyl. Check out this shot that gave UCLA a 3-0 team lead:

Not bad, right? It was then Abi Altick, a freshman, who iced the win for the Bruins with a 6-3, 6-4 win on court 4.

UCLA, who finished as NCAA runners-up in 2015, faces No. 5 seed Ole Miss in the Round of 16 on Thursday, May 17 in North Carolina.

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