Doubles Finalists Will Be Singles Adversaries Friday at Grass Courts
©Colette Lewis 2007--
Philadelphia, PA--
When Emily Fraser and Claire Bartlett take the court Friday morning at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, they will be on opposite sides of the net, facing each other for a spot in the singles final at the ITF U.S. Grass Court Championships. Both are hoping to finish the day as winners however, when they team up to face Nadja Gilchrist and Gabriela Paz in the girls doubles final on Friday afternoon.
Two of the boys will also face that same friend/foe equation when Bradley Klahn and Dennis Nevolo, who meet in the semifinals, will join forces against Ryan Harrison and Ryan Lipman in the boys doubles final.
It was another gray and unseasonably chilly day for the quarterfinal and semifinal matches in the doubles, and only Barlett and Fraser, who are unseeded in singles and doubles, managed to advance without dropping a set. First the pair defeated Jessica Alexander and Alexa Guarachi 6-4, 6-3, then dropped the young team of Lauren Herring and Grace Min, who had upset the top-seeded team of Mallory Cecil and Zaruhi Harutyunyan in the quarterfinals, 6-2, 6-2. Gilchrist and Paz, the No. 2 seeds, had a more difficult time of it, needing three sets to subdue unseeded Beatrice Capra and Agnes Sibilski 6-1, 2-6, 6-1 in the quarterfinals and falling behind against unseeded Shinann Featherston and Jacqueline Wu in the semifinals before regrouping for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory.
Klahn and Nevolo, the top-seeded team and USTA Spring National Champions, eased by David Hopkins and Tennys Sandgren in the quarterfinals 6-2, 6-2, but looked vulnerable in the first set of their semifinal encounter with unseeded Philip Nemec and Bob Van Overbeek, losing it 7-5. During the tense second set, Klahn and Nevolo began to find their rhythm however, and evened the match with a 7-5 set of their own. Nemec and Overbeek held to start the third and had a chance to regain their lost momentum when Nevolo went down 0-40 on his serve. But he and Klahn scored the next five points and Nemec and Overbeek couldn't recover from that reversal of fortune, dropping the final six games.
Harrison and Lipman, the No. 2 seeds, outlasted Matt Allare and Marc Powers in the quarterfinals 6-4, 7-6 (4), and against No. 4 seeds Devin Britton and Jordan Cox in the semfinals, the Ryans came out firing, taking the first set 6-2. But as quickly as they captured the first set, they lost the second 6-0, giving Britton and Cox hope for a complete comeback. But an early break of Britton gave Harrison and Lipman some breathing room, and they took the final set 6-2.
Lipman and Paz will also see double duty on Friday, as Lipman, the No. 5 seed, faces unseeded Dennis Kudla in the other semifinal, while Paz, the No. 2 seed, meets No. 3 seed Tara Moore.
For complete draws, see the TennisLink site.
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