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Sunday, February 4, 2007

Stanford Shocked at ITA Indoor; Gibbs, Harrison Fall at Les Petits As

On Saturday evening, the Georgia Tech women's team ended Stanford's 89-match winning streak, defeating the No. 1 ranked Cardinal 4-3 at the ITA Team Indoor Championships in Madison Wisconsin.

Georgia Tech was seeded No. 4, so it's not a George Mason situation, but when you consider that no one who is on the Stanford team now, including seniors Theresa Logar and Anne Yelsey, had ever lost a team match until last night, it's a pretty big deal. Stanford's streak dates back to May of 2003, when they lost in the NCAA final to Florida.


Tech started off by taking the doubles point, and freshman Kirsten Flower, who has had an astounding start to her college career, gave her team a 2-0 at No. 2 singles. But Stanford won the next three matches at Nos. 3, 4 and 1, and looked like a good bet to extend the NCAA record streak. But once Amanda Craddock, also a freshman, evened it with a three-set win at No. 6, it came down to No. 5 singles, and Tech senior Tarryn Rudman withstood that only-in-college pressure to take a 6-4 in the third win.

Georgia Tech today downed No. 2 seed Notre Dame 4-2, indicating that coach Bryan Shelton was able to keep his team focused despite the heady win on Saturday.

The ITA website has the details of the big upset. And here's ramblinwreck.com's version.

And while you are at the ITA's website, stop by the home page to read Jon Vegosen's NY Times op ed piece on the Rutgers tennis team's fight to survive.

In Tarbes France on Sunday, both Nicole Gibbs and Christian Harrison came up short in their bids to upset the top seeds and overwhelming favorites at Les Petits As--Hanna Orlik and Carlos Boluda. Belarus's Orlik defeated Gibbs 6-4, 6-1 to win, by my count, her fourth straight tournament, one of which was a Grade 4 ITF event. She turns 14 next month.

Harrison can take some comfort in the fact that he won twice as many games as any other player against defending champion Carlos Boluda of Spain, but lost 6-2, 6-2.

Harrison and partner Emmett Egger lost in the doubles final to the top seeded team from the Czech Republic on Saturday 6-1, 7-6 (4).

The current edition of the Inside Junior Tennis podcast is now available. Those of you put off by the poor quality of the sound will be happy to know that a new headset microphone has made a big improvement.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Collette,

An even more impressive team performance by Georgia Tech when you consider that Kristi Miller, their #1 for the last 3 years, didn't win one of her final three singles matches. That's the first time in her college career she's lost three in a row but probably the first time GT has had the players to cover her. Admittedly, she is on record as saying how much she dislikes playing indoors (one reason why she chose GT) but her losses, with the exception of the Logar match, were unexpected.

Regardless, if the freshmen don't run out of steam by season's end and Miller returns to form, Georgia Tech might prove a genuine contender for this year's NCAA tournament.

Anonymous said...

Mens Gators had a big upset today against #2 Baylor. Very big. This should knock UF up abit in the rankings.