Blue Devils Approach National Bids At Regional Championships

Sunday, October 16

Chapel Hill, N.C.

All Day

Duke University

Day Four

Blue Devils Top No. 32 Indiana To Move To 2-0

Blue Devils Approach National Bids At Regional Championships

10/16/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis

By: Duke Sports Information

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. ? Duke women's tennis players wrapped up their fourth day of competition at the Wilson/ITA Southeast Regional Championships Sunday in good position to send representatives to the ITA National Collegiate Indoor Championships Nov. 3-6. Junior UCLA transfer Daniela Bercek and freshman Jessi Robinson won two doubles matches to move on to the championship match, and senior Jackie Carleton will appear in the semifinal competition after winning one singles match Sunday.

The doubles championship will be a battle between the top two seeded pairs, with the champion advancing to the national indoor tournament. Top seeded Bercek and Robinson will meet second-seeded Kim Coventry and Joelle Schwenk of Kentucky Monday at 10:30 a.m. Bercek and Robinson defeated Clemson's Daniela Alvarez and Federica van Aldrichem, 8-5, in the quarterfinals and with four Blue Devil pairs remaining in the final eight teams, were forced to play freshman Melissa Mang and junior Jennifer Zika in the semifinals. The match between the four teammates was close, but Bercek and Robinson pulled through, 9-8. Mang and Zika posted an earlier 8-3 win Sunday over Sierra Poske and Christine Simpson from Wake Forest.

Bercek and Robinson came close to having to face another set of teammates in the final, but Coventry and Schwenk edged sixth-seeded Kristin Cargill and Carleton in a tiebreaker, 9-8 (3), in the quarterfinals. The Kentucky pair then defeated North Carolina's Sara Anundsen and Jenna Long, who advanced to the semifinals by beating Duke's Clelia Deltour and Tara Iyer, 8-3, in the quarterfinals.

On the singles courts, fourth-seeded Carleton came out ahead of Wake Forest's Alexandra Hirsch, 6-0, 6-4, to move on to the semifinal round. Kentucky's Coventry, the top seed in the singles bracket, will be seeing a lot of action against the Blue Devils Monday, as she will face Carleton at 9 a.m. in the semifinals.

The doubles championship will take place at 10:30 a.m. Monday at North Carolina's Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center, while the singles semifinals will begin at 9 a.m., and the championship will be played later in the day. The singles finalists and doubles champions Monday will advance to the national indoor championships in three weeks.

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