Georgia Beats Top Seed Stanford, UNC Downs Duke to Reach D-I Women's Team Indoor Final; 19 Americans in Main Draw at Grade 1 Banana Bowl; Sinclair Wins Claremont $15K

Georgia will play defending champion North Carolina in the final of the Division I ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships Tuesday in Seattle, after the fifth-seeded Bulldogs defeated top-ranked Stanford 4-3 in a thriller that came down to No. 1 singles.

Katarina Jokic of Georgia

For the second consecutive day, Georgia dropped the doubles point, but as in their win over No. 4 Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals, they were able to counter that with four wins in singles.  Georgia got two quick wins from Meg Kowalski at No. 6 and Vivian Wolff at No. 4 to take the lead over Stanford, then went up 3-1 with Marta Gonzalez's win at line 2. Janice Shin pulled the Cardinal within one point with a win at line 5, and Stanford tied it when Caroline Lampl came back to win at line 3. That left line 1, where sophomores Katarina Jokic of Georgia and Michaela Gordon of Stanford were entering the third set Jokic had forced. Jokic took a 3-1 lead only to seed Gordon tie it up, but another break gave Jokic a 4-3 lead and she was able to coast home from there, taking a 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory.  So Stanford's first trip to the Team Indoor Championships since 2011, when they won the title, ends with a semifinal loss.

North Carolina has established itself as the dynasty of Women's Indoor Championships, having now advanced to the final for the fifth consecutive year after blanking No. 3 seed Duke 4-0 today. The second-seeded Tar Heels took the doubles point with wins at lines 1 and 3, then earned points from Alexa Graham at line 3, Makenna Jones at line 1 and Jessie Aney at line 5.

Tomorrow's championship, at 10 a.m. Pacific, will be a rematch of the 2015 final, which North Carolina won 4-1.  For links to live scoring and live streaming, see the Slam Tennis site.

No. 5 Georgia 4, No. 1 Stanford 3
Doubles:
1) No. 11 Lampl/Yee (STAN) d. Carle/Wolff (UGA) 6-3
2) No. 13 Arbuthnott/Gordon (STAN) d. Christofi/Morgan Coppoc (UGA) 7-5
3) Jokic/Kowalski (UGA) d. No. 31 Lord/Niluka Madurawe (STAN) 6-4
Order of Finish: 1, 3, 2

Singles:
1) No. 2 Katarina Jokic (UGA) d. No. 23 Michaela Gordon (STAN) 4-6, 6-1, 6-3
2) No. 10 Marta Gonzalez (UGA) d. No. 46 Melissa Lord (STAN) 7-5, 6-2
3) No. 57 Caroline Lampl (STAN) d. No. 102 Lourdes Carle (UGA) 3-6, 6-3, 6-0
4) No. 58 Vivian Wolff (UGA) d. No. 14 Emily Arbuthnott (STAN) 6-2, 6-2
5) No. 37 Janice Shin (STAN) d. Elena Christofi (UGA) 6-3, 6-2
6) No. 84 Meg Kowalski (UGA) d. No. 44 Emma Higuchi (STAN) 6-1, 6-1
Order of Finish: 6, 4, 2, 5, 3, 1
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No. 3 North Carolina 4, No. 4 Duke 0
Doubles
1)Aney/Graham (UNC) vs. #30 Mateas/Bilokin (Duke) 6-2
2)McCarthy/Hamlin (Duke) def. #5 Jones/Morra (UNC) 6-2
3) Daavettila/Sanford (UNC) def. Chi/Chen (Duke) 6-4
Order of Finish: 2, 3, 1

Singles
#6 Makenna Jones (UNC) def. #11 Maria Mateas (Duke) 7-6, 6-0
#15 Sara Daavettila (UNC) vs. #8 Meible Chi (Duke) 6-2, 4-6, 2-2
#7 Alexa Graham (UNC) def. #21 Kelly Chen (Duke) 6-1, 6-4
#20 Cameron Morra (UNC) vs. #100 Kaitlyn McCarthy (Duke) 6-4, 3-6, 0-4
Jessie Aney (UNC) def. Margaryta Bilokin (Duke) 3-6, 6-3, 6-1
#104 Alle Sanford (UNC) vs. Ellyse Hamlin (Duke) 6-7, 6-6
Order of Finish: 3, 1, 5
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For the fifth straight week, a Grade 1 tournament is underway in Central/South America, with this week's Banana Bowl in Brazil a warmup for the Grade A next week in Porto Alegre.  As usual, there is a large contingent of Americans in the draw, with seven US boys and 12 US girls in the 48-player main draws. The seeds all had first round byes, with Adam Neff, Blaise Bicknell, qualifier Martin Damm and Ulises Blanch, the non-seeded US boys, getting first round wins today. Eliot Spizzirri[3], Toby Kodat[15] and Tyler Zink[6] will play their first matches on Tuesday.

Unseeded US girls advancing out of the first round today are Hina Inoue, last week's Grade 1 champion Charlotte Chavatipon, wild card Madison Sieg, qualifier Jaedan Brown, Hibah Shaikh and Ellie Coleman. The seeded US girls are Gabby Price[8], Kailey Evans[9], Charlotte Owensby[11] and Hurricane Tyra Black[2].

Diane Parry of France and Nicolas Alvarez Varona of Spain are the top seeds.

The singles final at the $15,000 ITF World Tennis Tour tournament in Claremont California was played today after rain prevented it from starting on Sunday.  Former Cornell standout Colin Sinclair of the Northern Mariana Islands won his first pro title in his sixth final, all coming since August of last year. The top seed defeated Florida State senior Lucas Poullain of France, a qualifier, 6-3, 7-6(3) in today's final.