Women’s Tennis
After an epic three-set match Wednesday, Audra Cohen and Cristelle Grier were glad to get off light Thursday.
The nation’s No. 2-ranked doubles tandem advanced to the semifinals of the NCAA championships Thursday with a straight-set victory over Candice Fuchs and Megan Moulton-Levy of William & Mary, 6-4, 6-0.
“It was just a no-win situation for their opposition,” Northwestern coach Claire Pollard said. “We were just pretty ruthless and decided we wanted to win every game.”
After struggling to win two tie-breakers in the round of 16, Cohen and Grier had an easier time in the quarters. Cohen, who has suffered back problems all year, seemed unaffected yesterday, and the duo left little doubt as to who deserved to move on after shutting out Fuchs and Moulton-Levy in the second set.
“I think if we can start every point on our own terms, nobody has a shot,” Cohen said. “I think we just did it perfectly in the second set of our match today.”
The two displayed both dominance and determination, refusing to give away any points once they took control of the match.
“The second set, we knew exactly how to beat them,” Grier said. “Even when we were 3-love up we had a huge game, which we could have not tried as hard for because we were 3-love up and hopefully on our way to winning. But Audra and I just did a fantastic job of going after every point.”
While the match was much shorter than the previous day’s, Cohen was still on the court from morning until late afternoon. In the quarterfinals of the singles tournament Cohen knocked off Story Tweedie-Yates of Texas Christian University 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.
The win made Cohen the first NU player to win 50 matches in a season, a feat that the freshman never expected.
“I had no idea,” said Cohen, the nation’s No. 4 singles player. “I didn’t even know if I was playing in 50 matches by the end of the year.”
Cohen, who is trying to be only the third player to win a doubles and singles title in the same year, is the first to reach the semifinals of both tournaments since three players accomplished the feat in 2002.
Her 50th victory of the year did not come without trouble. She dropped the first set and was down 4-3 in the second set before fighting off a deuce-point and winning 6-4.
“The other kid just came out playing really great tennis,” Pollard said. “She really did a good job dictating the tempo of the match. I think it took a while for Audra to figure out how she was going to negate the girl’s great play.”
Cohen will play a familiar foe, UCLA’s Riza Zalameda, at 10 a.m. today in the semifinals. The two were partners when they won the USTA Girls 18 Super National Title in 2004.
The title gave the pair a wild card entry into the US Open, where they defeated Vera Zvonareva and Anastasia Myskina in the first round. Myskina went on to win the 2004 French Open.
In the doubles tournament, Grier and Cohen will face Amber Liu and Anne Yelsey of Stanford this afternoon for the right to play in the finals on Saturday.
Reach David Kalan at [email protected].
