Tulsa
Nevada
Tulsa, SMU and Boise State Women Reach WAC Championship Semifinals
4/27/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
April 27, 2002
Tulsa, Oklahoma - After beginning the day with the first match at 8:00 a.m. Friday morning, the first full day of action at the Western Athletic Conference Tennis Championships concluded at 3:31 a.m. Saturday morning with Boise State joining Tulsa, SMU and Fresno State in the women's semifinals. In the first semifinal, top-seeded Fresno State will face fourth-seeded Tulsa at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, while Boise State will face third-seeded SMU at time to be determined Saturday morning.
Fourth-seeded Tulsa was the first team to advance to Saturday's semifinal with a 4-2 win over Nevada, moving to 15-9 with the win. The Golden Hurricane battled the wind and the rain outdoors to win the doubles point before moving inside for singles play. Tulsa went on to win three of five completed singles matches for the victory. TU earned wins at the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 positions and Tulsa's junior tandem of Alicia Pillay and Aleksandra Durksa each picked up their 30th singles wins of the season, becoming the just the second and third players to reach the 30-win singles plateau in a single season. The Hurricane improved its home mark to 12-1 this season.
Third-seeded SMU beat instate rival and sixth-seeded UTEP, 4-1 in the second quarterfinal match. The Mustangs won the doubles point with wins at the No. 1 and No. 2 positions. In singles, UTEP's lone win came at the No. 6 singles spot. The Mustangs won three straight-set matches to secure the win.
Top-seeded Fresno State, who took the court for the first time almost five and a half hours after its scheduled 4:30 p.m. match, defeated San Jose State, 4-0. The Spartans (8-15) were playing their second match of the day. The Bulldogs, who are ranked No. 25 in this week's ITA Rankings, lost only eight games in four singles matches lead by No. 2 Chloe Carlotti who did not drop a game.
The final match of the night featured second-seeded Boise State and seventh-seeded Rice. The Broncos captured two of the three top singles positions and the No. 4 position, but the Owls rallied to take the No. 2 and No. 4 slots. At the No. 6 spot, Rice's Karen Chao needed a 9-7 win in the tie-breaker over Boise State's Alissa Ayling for the come-from-behind win to tie the match at 3-3 and force doubles.
In doubles action, which began at 2:35 a.m., the Broncos' 50th-ranked doubles team of Renate Stoop and Helen Lawson pulled off an 8-2 win at the top spot over Rice's Jeri Gonzalez and ErikaVillalobos and BSU's No. 2 team of Jemima Hayward and Erin Polowski topped the Owls' combination, 8-4, to prevent the upset and send Boise State (21-5) into the semifinals.
