Kentucky’s No. 6 tandem of Mami Adachi and Aldila Sutjiadi once again came up on the winning end of a third-set tiebreak Friday afternoon, downing South Carolina’s Hadley Berg and Paige Cline to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Doubles Championship for the second consecutive year.
After making it to the quarterfinals last year, the Kentucky duo will be making its second consecutive appearance in tomorrow’s Elite Eight as well as the seventh appearance in program history. Last season, the twosome became the first doubles pair from Kentucky to advance to the quarterfinals since 2003.
The Wildcats struggled to get going as Hadley and Cline cruised to a 6-2 first-set victory. With the pressure turned up, Adachi and Sutjiadi focused in to take a 5-2 lead in the second set, but South Carolina wouldn’t give in that easy. Hadley and Cline came back to win three consecutive games and ultimately force a tiebreak. The duos went back-and-forth, but Kentucky ultimately took the set, 7-6 (6).
Just like the Thursday’s match against Georgia Tech, the pairs went point for point in the beginning of the third-set tiebreak, but with a 5-4 advantage, Kentucky went on to hammer out four-straight points and the Gamecocks would not recover.
“We agreed we were going to play one point at a time,” explained Sutjiadi. “We were up 5-2 in the second set and then they came back to five all. We just stay positive and play the way we want to play because otherwise they are going to come out and play more aggressive. Just like yesterday, when we go into a third-set tiebreak we wanted to be more aggressive than them.”
Saturday’s matchup will present another difficult task, as Adachi and Sutjiadi will face Ohio State’s 18th-ranked Francesca Di Lorenzo and Miho Kowase. The Buckeye pair advanced to Saturday’s quarterfinals with wins over No. 3 Caroline Brinson and Ellen Perez (Georgia) and No. 14 Alizee Michaud and Taylor Russo (Auburn). First serve is set for 3 p.m.
NCAA Women’s Doubles Championship – Round of 16
Dan Magill Tennis Complex – Athens, Ga.
May 26, 2017
No. 6 Aldila Sutjiadi/Mami Adachi (UK) def. No. 24 Hadley Berg/Paige Cline (SC), 2-6, 7-6 (6), 1-0 (5)
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s tennis program, follow @UKWomensTennis on Twitter and Instagram, on Facebook at Facebook.com/UKWomensTennis and on the web at UKathletics.com.
‑ GO CATS –
For more information contact:
Karlie Kinneer
