Home Team Wins Three at NCAA Tournament

©Colette Lewis 2006
Palo Alto CA--

The Stanford Cardinal fans were out in force on a cool and breezy Saturday, giving a lift to Theresa Logar, KC Corkery and the doubles team of Alice Barnes and Anne Yelsey, all of whom advanced to Sunday's semifinals.

Logar, a nine seed, took out Kristi Miller of Georgia Tech, the nation's top-ranked player and the tournament's second seed 6-3, 2-6, 6-3. Logar, a lefthander who gives new meaning to the word feisty, credited the partisans in the stands for helping her to victory.

"There were a ton of people here, which was sweet," said Logar, a junior from Rochester Hills, Michigan. "I was like, `I kind of like playing in front of all those people, maybe I'll do this again tomorrow.' So in order to do this tomorrow, I've got to win."

Controlling the first set with depth and consistency, Logar dominated Miller, a longtime opponent of Logar's from their preteen years in Michigan. Miller committed a bevy of unforced errors and didn't appear to relax until the third game of the second set, when she broke Logar for the first time, and then followed it with another break on Logar's next service game.

The third set was close until Logar, squawking after each shot, broke Miller at 3-4, but with the double faults Logar was frequently contributing to Miller's cause, holding for the match was certainly not a given. In that final game, Logar did need to save a break point before stroking the forehand winner that put her in the semifinals.

Logar, who clinched the team victory for Stanford on Tuesday at No. 3 singles, admitted that she was running on adrenaline this deep into the fortnight of tennis.

"This is like day 15 of the tournament. I never expected to be the one to clinch, that was icing on the cake and this is the sprinkles and cherry on top," she said.

Logar will battle unseeded Suzi Babos of California-Berkley in one of Sunday's semifinals. Babos defeated Riza Zalameda of UCLA, also unseeded, 7-5, 6-1.

"I had a pretty good game plan, but the main thing was to keep it simple," said Babos, a sophomore from Hungary. "Coming in I didn't have high hopes, and I'm surprised to be here. But with each match I'm more engergized and more confident."
Babos and Logar haven't played since last year's NCAA individual tournament, when Logar defeated Babos in straight sets.

The third Pac-10 player to reach the semifinals is unseeded Lindsey Nelson, who came back to defeat Celia Durkin of Stanford 5-7, 6-0, 6-3. Nelson's game was a bit off at the start, and with the small margin of error on her flat, deep ground strokes, it doesn't take much for them to catch the tape or sail a few inches long. But she also gave Durkin credit for that.

"By the end of the first set, I had picked up the pace of her ball, got used to it," said the sophomore, who is unseeded despite playing No. 1 for USC. "But it was close, it could have gone either way, even in that 6-0 set, it was close."

Nelson has now played three consecutive three-set matches, and with Southern Cal's loss in the semifinals of the team event, it would be understandable if her less-than-substantial frame is beginning to wear down. But instead she talked only of the positives of the past two weeks.

"I'm a confident person, I have faith in my game, and this is one of my goals. I can play better, and I feel like I can play forever."

Her opponent in the semifinals is William & Mary's Megan Moulton-Levy, who continued her surprising run with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Tatsiana Uvarova of Virginia Commonwealth. The diminutive Moulton-Levy was down 3-0 to start the match, but she wasn't discouraged.

"She was on fire," said the junior from Michigan. "Hitting winners from everywhere. It was impossible for me to do anything."

But she worked her way back to 3-3, primarily by "moving my feet and digging more," only to fall behind again. At 5-3, the whole match turned around for Moulton-Levy as she was the one who could do no wrong, at one stage winning 13 straight and 26 of 27 points to take the first set and a 4-0 lead in the second.

Moulton-Levy was recently announced as the winner of the ITA/Arthur Ashe, Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship, and her on-court demeanor has won her a new legion of fans in Palo Alto. She's enjoying the ride.

"I'm having a blast. These are perfect conditions to play good tennis, and I am," she said.

The men's quarterfinal matches were less compelling than the women's, but there's always suspense when Stanford's KC Corkery takes the court this week, with every match possibly his last as a collegian. The unseeded senior from Southern California
forestalled that event on Saturday, taking a 7-5, 6-2 win over unseed Clement Reix of Clemson.

"The crowd's been great," said Corkery. "They seem to really invigorate me every time there's a big point or I've hit a big shot."

Corkery admitted that he'd already reached one his goals--to be a four-time All-American. He needed two wins to do it, because he was not seeded in the tournament, and now he's set his sights on even more.

"This is great. I've felt like I've had potential since I've gotten here at Stanford. I've had a great career, but I always thought I could do this every year. It's nice to finally go out and show it. I don't know how many people think I'm that good, but I've always felt that I could play with these guys."

Next up for Corkery is Somdev Davvarman of Virginia, a nine seed. Devvarman outsteadied unseeded Sheeva Parbhu of Notre Dame 6-1, 6-3.

"My basic strategy was to stay really tough right in the beginning, get the early break and cruise ahead," said the sophomore from India, who is the only semifinalist with four straight-set victories in the tournament.

Breaking Parbhu in the first game gave Davvarman a chance to test his strategy and it worked perfectly, as he took a 4-0 lead before finally surrendering a game. Davvarman counts quickness and competitiveness as his main strengths, and he'll enter Sunday's match against Corkery with a psychological advantage--a win in the only other match they've played, in a Pro Circuit Futures match last year.

"The first and second sets were really close and I pulled off the third," said Davvarman. "It wasn't that big of a deal at the time--it was qualifying on court 29 with no one watching."

He knows that won't be the case on Sunday.

"KC's obviously from Stanford and he's going to pull a crowd. It's not going to be on court 29," he laughed. "It'll be fun to play, fun to be the bad guy."

While Corkery was the center of attention on Court 1, top seed Ben Kohlloeffel of UCLA was quietly exorcising some demons of his own with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Conor Niland of California-Berkley. Niland had defeated Kohlloeffel in their two previous meetings this spring and even the nation's top-ranking didn't keep him from coming into the third encounter "a little bit nervous and a little bit scared."

But Kohlloeffel, a quarterfinalist in the individual tournament last year when UCLA took the team championship, got off quickly with a break in the third game, and that was all he needed for the first set.

"I wasn't putting that much pressure on his serve," said Niland, a senior from Ireland. "He didn't make many unforced errors....it's tough to beat Ben three times in the space of a few months."

Niland fell behind immediately in the second set and it was 4-0 before he took a game. Kohlloeffel effectively varied his pace and style, using his quickness to disrupt the rhythm of Niland, whose groundstrokes can be lethal when given pace and time.

"You can't play beautiful tennis in the wind," said Kohlloeffel, a sophomore from Germany. "It's tough to play in those conditions, you can't go for your shots, you can't go for the line. It's a little more putting the ball in the court and hoping something happens."

The top seed will face unseeded Erling Tveit of Ole Miss in a battle of lefthanders Sunday, as Tveit upset yet another lefty, eighth seed Travis Helgeson of Texas 7-6 (4), 6-4.

Helgeson had managed an early break over the hard-serving sophomore from Norway, but could not close out the set serving at 5-4, and the dangerous Tveit took the tiebreak. When Tveit got an early break in the second set, he held on to it to eliminate the sophomore from Kansas.

When asked about facing the nation's top-ranked player, the 22nd-ranked Tveit didn't seem to be overawed.

"I know he's good. I'm just going to try to play my game and see what happens."

The third Stanford winner of the day, the doubles team of Alice Barnes and Anne Yelsey, made short work of Pac-10 rivals Laura Gordon and Riza Zalameda of UCLA 6-1, 6-4. The top seeds will take on the unseeded Northwestern pair of Cristelle Grier and Alexis Prousis in one semifinal, while five seeds Sara Anundsen and Jenna Long will meet another five seeded team, Luci Sainz and Katherina Winterhalter of Fresno State, who upset the second seeds Melissa Applebaum and Audra Cohen of Miami.

Three seeded teams also advanced in the men's doubles, with second seeds Andre Begemann and Scott Doerner of Pepperdine matching up with five seeds Marco Born and Andreas Siljestrom of Middle Tennessee State in one semifinal. The other semifinal will feature Illinois' Kevin Anderson and Ryan Rowe, the third seeds, against unseeded Rafael Abreu and Jordan Freitas of Texas Christian.

For complete scores and draws, see the Stanford website.