Today was the first day of the NCAA Individual National Singles and Doubles tournament. Kalla Schaefer qualified for singles, and Kalla and Alexandra Bayliss qualified as a doubles team. This is the second time under Coach Barnes' that the Lady 'Hawks have qualified for the Individual tournament (The first time was Kalla Schaefer in the '08-'09 season). The tournament is taking place this year in Cary, NC at the Cary Tennis Park, one of the most beautiful public tennis facilities in the nation.
The first match of the day was Kalla's singles match against the 2 seed and defending national champion, Kristin Lim of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. Kalla knew it would be a tough match, but she came out ready for the challenge. Kalla drew first blood breaking Lim in the first game, but her opponent was not going away that easy as she won the next four games to go down one break. The two then traded serve games until the set was over at 6-3. Kalla was playing well, and her style was something Lim was not used to. At the end of the first set it looked like Kalla was going to really test Lim in the second set. Unfortunately Lim settled into the match, and was able to pull out all of the close games to win the second set 6-3, 6-0. Because the tournament is single elimination that means Kalla's singles season is over, but her an Alexandra's doubles match was still to come.
Later in the day Kalla and Alexandra took on the team of Padmanabhan/Kelly from Emory University. It's important to note that in the NCAA individual tournament doubles match are the best two of three sets not an eight game pro set like in a team match. Kalla and Alexandra played well from the start going up 2-0, but Emory was not going to go away that easy and they leveled the match at 2-2. That's when Kalla and Alexandra really started to click. They took the next 4 straight games, and took the first set 6-2. In the second set they went up 2-0 again, but Emory broke Kalla in a really long game to make the score 2-1. Right after the game it looked like Emory may have stolen some of the momentum, but Kalla and Alexandra won the next two games to make it 4-1. After a hold by each team the score was 5-2. Kalla and Alexandra then broke to win the match by a final score 6-2, 6-2.
This is a great win by Kalla and Alexandra, and they now advance to the Quarterfinals where they will take on Kristin Lim and Jessica Huang from Claremont-Mudd-Scripps tomorrow May 25th. The match will start no earlier than 3:00pm. There is a chance that the match could be streamed live online, but we won't know that until the ladies receive their court assignment. I will make sure to update twitter with the link if their match is being streamed live. If you would like to view the draw and use live scoring click here.
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