North Carolina and Texas Meet for D-I Women's Team Indoor Final; Nakashima Advances to Challenger Final; Two US Doubles Titles on ITF Junior Circuit

The North Carolina women's team reached their seventh consecutive ITA National Team Indoor final today with a 4-1 victory over No. 4 seed Pepperdine, but there will be no repeat of last year's final after the third-seeded Texas team, playing five freshman, defeated No. 2 seed UCLA 4-2 in the night match at the Greenwood Tennis Center in Stillwater Oklahoma. 

North Carolina was at full strength, while Pepperdine was again playing without Ashley Lahey, one of their top two players. After the Tar Heels claimed the doubles point, the Waves had an uphill battle, and North Carolina closed it out by virtue of their strength at the bottom of the lineup.

Texas, who will be making just their second trip to an Indoor final, with their only other final in 2006, won the doubles point from UCLA after the two teams had split the No. 2 and No. 3 lines. Texas freshmen Kylie Collins and Lulu Sun took out the nation's top doubles team, Jada Hart and Elysia Bolton, 6-4 to clinch it for the Longhorns.

Texas came out firing in singles, taking five first sets in singles, but UCLA mounted a comeback that came up just short when Collins again clinched, dominating the tiebreaker that Annette Goulak had to win to keep the match going, for a 7-5, 7-6(1) victory.

The final is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, with a full day of consolation matches set to begin at 10:00 a.m. For live streaming and live scoring, see the ITA tournament site.

North Carolina[1] 4, Pepperdine[4] 1 

Singles

1. Alexa Graham (UNC) vs. Jessica Failla (PEPP) 5-7, 2-5 UNF

2. Sara Daavettila (UNC) vs. Shiori Fukuda (PEPP) 6-2, 1-6, 4-2  UNF

3. Cameron Morra (UNC) def. Lexi Ryngler (PEPP) 6-0, 6-1 

4. Taisiya Pachkaleva (PEPP) def. Elizabeth Scotty (UNC) 6-4, 6-0 

5. Makenna Jones (UNC) def. Lisa Zaar (PEPP) 6-3, 6-0 

6. Fiona Crawley (UNC) def. Nikki Redelijk (PEPP) 6-3, 6-4 

Doubles 

1. Sara Daavettila and Alexa Graham(UNC) vs. Shiori Fukuda and Jessica Failla (PEPP) 5-5 UNF

2. Elizabeth Scotty and Cameron Morra (UNC) def. Astrid Olsen and Nikki Redelijk (PEPP) 6-1 

3. Reilly Tran and Allie Sanford (UNC) def. Taisiya Pachkaleva and Lisa Zaar (PEPP) 6-4 

Order of finish: Singles 3,4,5,6; Doubles 2,3  

Texas[3] 4, UCLA[2] 2

Singles

1. Peyton Stearns (UT) def. Elysia Bolton (UCLA) 6-3, 6-2

2. Abbey Forbes (UCLA) def. Anna Turati (UT) 7-5, 6-1

3. Jada Hart (UCLA) def.  Lulu Sun (UT) 1-6, 6-2 6-4

4. Charlotte Chavatipon (UT) d. Vivian Wolff (UCLA) 6-1, 6-4 

5. Malaika Rapolu (UT) vs. Abi Altick (UCLA) 6-3, 5-7, 2-1 UNF 

6. Kylie Collins (UT) d. Annette Goulak (UCLA) 7-5, 7-6(1) 

Doubles

1. Kylie Collins and Lulu Sun (UT) def. Elysia Bolton and Jada Hart (UCLA) 6-4 

2. Anna Turati and Fernanda Labrana (UT) def. Annette Goulak and Vivian Wolff (UCLA) 6-3 

3. Abi Altick and Taylor Johnson (UCLA) def. Marta Perez Mur amd Charlotte Chavatipon (UT) 6-2 

Order of finish: Singles 1,4,3,2,6; Doubles 3,2,1

Nineteen-year-old Brandon Nakashima has advanced to his second ATP Challenger final in the past three months after coming from behind again today at the Quimper France Challenger 80. For the third match in succession, the former Virginia star lost the first set but recovered, defeating alternate Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.  Nakashima will play unseeded Bernabe Zapata Miralles of Spain, who defeated Peter Gojowczyk of Germany 6-2, 6-1. Regardless of the outcome of Sunday's final, Nakashima will break into the ATP Top 150 for the first time. Zapata Miralles will be playing in his fourth Challenger final, with two of those coming since the restart last August. Like Nakashima, he is looking for his second Challenger title.

Nakashima and partner Hunter Reese(Tennessee) fell in the doubles final today, to Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium and Daniel Masur of Germany, 6-2, 6-1.

Both Jenson Brooksby and Emilio Nava lost in the semifinals of this week's $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour tournament in Spain. Unseeded Gastao Elias of Portugal defeated No. 4 seed Brooksby 6-0, 6-2 in just over an hour, while Nava and Holger Rune of Denmark battle for two hours and 35 minutes before Rune posted a 6-7(9), 6-1, 6-4 victory. Nava could not have been helped by his 14 double faults.

With the first ball of the Australian Open set to be struck in less than 24 hours, several champions will be crowned in the warmup events, but not at the WTA Grampians Trophy, which was confined to those who were in hard quarantine due to positive Covid results of those who were on their charter flights. Due to the Thursday off day due to the hotel worker's positive test, the Grampians tournament was too far behind to catch up, even with a match tiebreaker being adopted in lieu of a third set. Jennifer Brady and Ann Li will play each other in the semifinals, but the winner will not play the winner of the Maria Sakkari - Anett Kontaveit semifinal. The 20-year-old Li, who reached the third round of the US Open last fall, advanced to her first WTA round of 16, quarterfinal and now semifinal this week in Melbourne. She is at 82 now in the live rankings after her run this week.

Not many US juniors in action this week on the ITF Junior Circuit, what with the big South American swing beginning Monday, but two doubles titles were claimed.  At the Grade 5 in Nicaragua, unseeded Sierra Berry and Tianna Rangan defeated top seeds Sarah L'Allier of Canada and Jaquelyn Ogunwale of Great Britain 7-5, 6-4 in the final. 

Cameron Austin Chang won his third ITF Junior Circuit doubles title at the Grade 5 in Singapore, with the same partner as the previous two, Matthew Johnstone of Singapore. Chang and Johnstone, the No. 2 seeds, defeated top seeds Nathan Barki and Brendan Hendrata of Indonesia 6-4, 2-6, 10-8 in the final.