Four members of the Virginia women’s tennis team competed in the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships, held Nov. 18-23 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
Senior Annabelle Xu and sophomore Martina Genis Salas advanced to the quarterfinals of the doubles draw.
Xu and Genis Salas opened play with a 6-4, 6-4 win against a tandem from Fordham. They won a third-set tiebreaker 10-4 against a team from USC to advance to Friday’s quarterfinals. Xu and Genis Salas, a 5-8 seed in the draw, fell 6-0, 6-4 against No. 4 seed Sophia Webster and Celia-Belle Mohr of Vanderbilt in Friday’s quarterfinal match.
By advancing to the quarterfinals, Xu and Genis Salas will earn All-America honors in doubles when the ITA officially announces the accolades in June.
Fifth-year Melodie Collard and junior Vivian Yang advanced to the Round of 16 of doubles. Collard and Yang, also a 5-8 seed, topped a pair from Florida in their opener to advance to the second round before falling 6-4, 6-4 against Victoria Osuigwe and Gabriella Broadfoot of NC State. Collard was the defending doubles champion, having won the title last year with partner Elaine Chervinsky.
Xu and Yang also competed in the singles draw, with both players upset in their openers. Xu, a 9-16 seed, dropped her first set 6-3 against Stephanie Yakoff of Harvard, but won her second set 6-3. Yakoff took the third set 6-3 to eliminate Yu.
Yang, also a 9-16 seed in the singles draw, won her first set 6-1 against Carolina Gomez Alonso of Arkansas, but the Razorback came back to take the final two sets to eliminate Yang.