University of Washington
NCAA Championships
Chan Makes NCAA Round Of 16 In Singles And Doubles
May 26, 2011 | Women's Tennis
May 26, 2011
PALO ALTO, Calif. - Senior Venise Chan remains alive in the NCAA Singles Championships, advancing to the round of 16 for the second straight season with a clutch third set tiebreak victory today at Stanford's Taube Tennis Center. Fourth-seeded Denise Dy was upended in her second round match, but she and Chan came back in the evening to win their first round doubles match in straight sets.
Chan went the distance against 56th-ranked Shannon Matthews of Notre Dame. She controlled the first set en route to a 6-3 win, but Matthews responded with a 6-3 win of her own in set two. In the third, Chan opened up a 5-3 lead and served for the match, but Matthews broke to stay alive and held to make it 5-all. Chan held and so did Matthews, so the two headed into a tiebreak. At 3-3 in the breaker, Chan won three straight points to get to match point, and she won it on her second chance after a diagonal exchange on the baseline, hitting a forehand winner to the open court.
Now Chan will be tasked with upsetting the tournament's No. 1 seed, Jana Juricova of California. Chan also ran into the No. 1-ranked player in the round of 16 last year, falling to Irina Falconi of Georgia Tech.
The win also gives Chan sole possession of second on the Husky career singles wins list, with 101 victories, breaking a tie with All-American Dea Sumantri.
Dy was one of three top-eight seeds to fall early on day two. Dy had defeated Aeriel Ellis of Texas in an epic dual match earlier in the season, staging a huge comeback to clinch the win for the Huskies. Today she started well, taking the first set, 6-4, but Ellis picked up her level and took the early lead in the second set. Dy got back on serve and was serving down 3-4, but she lost serve again and Ellis held to take the set. Ellis grabbed a 3-0 third set lead and didn't slip up, closing it out, 6-2. Dy's singles season wraps up with a 30-7 record.
The two then had a lengthy break before returning to the courts for the first round of the NCAA Doubles tourney. Despite being ranked 13th nationally, Dy and Chan had not won a doubles match together since February 25, having been split up midway through the regular season, and they were facing the 17th-ranked tandem of Sanaa Bhambri and Sandhya Nagaraj from North Carolina State.
Chan and Dy got back in rhythm together with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over the Wolfpack duo. The NCAA tourney is the first case all season where the doubles matches are played out a full three sets, rather than the usual eight-game pro sets.
They're the first Husky doubles duo to win a round in NCAAs since Dea Sumantri and Claire Carter made the quarterfinals in 2004. Tomorrow they will take on the fifth-ranked duo of Anna Bartenstein and Bianca Eichkorn from Miami. A win tomorrow would also mean All-America honors in doubles to go with their singles awards.
Washington Women's Tennis
NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships
May 26, 2011 - Palo Alto, Calif.
Taube Tennis Center
NCAA Singles - Second Round - 32 Players
(21) Aeriel Ellis (Texas) def. (4) Denise Dy (UW), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2
NCAA Doubles - First Round - 32 Teams
(13) Chan/Dy (UW) def. (17) Bhambri/Nagaraj (NC State), 6-4, 6-3
(#) refer to national ITA singles rankings; in the tournament itself, Dy is also the No. 4 seed and Chan is one of eight (9-16) seeds.
Players Mentioned
