Cavaliers Advance To NCAA Singles/Doubles Sweet 16
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May 26, 2016
NCAA Singles Bracket | NCAA Doubles Bracket | Championship Central
TULSA, Okla. — Virginia women’s tennis players continued to advance at the NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships on Thursday (May 26) as seniors Danielle Collins (St. Petersburg, Fla.) and Julia Elbaba (Oyster Bay, N.Y.) advanced in singles, while Collins and freshman Meghan Kelley (Falmouth, Me.) advanced in doubles at the Case Tennis Center.
Collins and Elbaba will both continue to play in the tournament with their Sweet 16 matches on Friday, while Collins and Kelley will also team up for a Friday match. A berth in the Elite Eight is on the line in all three contests.
Collins, the No. 2 overall seed in the singles tournament, advanced with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Jessie Aney of North Carolina. Aney was ranked No. 57 in the latest ITA singles rankings. Collins will face Arianne Hartano of Ole Miss at 11 a.m. ET on Friday. Hartano is ranked No. 33 in the latest ITA rankings.
Elbaba, who is seeded in the group of 9-16 in the singles tournament, advanced with a 6-2 6-3 victory over Georgiana Patrasc of Mississippi State. Patrasc was ranked No. 36 in the latest ITA singles rankings. Elbaba will now face the tournament’s top-seeded player in Hayley Carter of North Carolina at 11 a.m. ET on Friday.
In the doubles portion of the competition, the Cavalier duo of Collins and Kelley also advanced to the Sweet 16 with a 6-3, 7-5 win over the team of Shayne Austin and Lauren Marker from Arizona. Both teams are unseeded, but Collins and Kelley are ranked No. 18 in the latest ITA doubles rankings, while Austin and Marker are ranked No. 24 in doubles.
Collins and Kelley will now face the team of Mayar Sherif-Ahmed and Rana Sherif-Ahmed from Fresno State on Friday at 2:30 p.m. ET. The duo from Fresno State upset the seeded team from Stanford to advance to the Sweet 16 matchup.
Fans can follow the action through live stats and video linked at VirginiaSports.com or through updates on the program’s official Twitter account @UVAWomensTennis or by following @NCAATennis on Twitter.