Oct. 3, 2009
LOS ANGELES - Texas A&M got a pair of doubles victories today in the opening round of the 32-team prequalifier tournament at the Women's Riviera/ITA All-American Championships.
Aggie junior Stephanie Davidson (Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas) and freshman Nazari Urbina (Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico) picked up a convincing 8-1 victory over No. 3 seed Kirsten Flower and Christina Keesey of Ohio State. They will face Megan Alexander and Maria Bebanova of TCU Sunday in the second round.
"Stephanie and Nazari played well and beat the No. 3 seed, 8-1," A&M coach Bobby Kleinecke said. "It is a great win, and hopefully they can continue that tomorrow when they go up against a team from TCU, half of the team which won the Midland Tournament."
In A&M's other doubles match, junior Morgan Frank (Oldsmar, Fla.) and senior Elzé Potgieter (Bloemfontein, South Africa) held off Melisa Esposito and Camila Belassi of Colorado, 9-8 (2).
"We faced a whole gamut of things throughout the match," Kleinecke said. "We begin the match playing with a lot of energy and then they cut the lead to 4-3 and we fall apart. This is a new team we are trying out, but we can't fall apart when we lose games. It was a strange match. We played well enough to win and were fortunate to win."
The Aggie tandem faces Courtney McLane and Alexa Guarachi of Alabama on Sunday.
In singles, Frank was eliminated in the first round of the 64-player singles prequalifier after falling to Claire Bartlett of Florida, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4.
"Things were not going Morgan's way and she didn't play well," Kleinecke said. "At this level, you have to bring our best from the beginning."
The two doubles teams must win two matches on Sunday to advance to the qualifying round.