Stanford, Georgia, UNC and Duke Advance to Semifinals at D-I Women's ITA National Team Indoor Championships; Krueger Claims Dallas Challenger Title; US Women Fall to Australia in Fed Cup

After a day off due to the snowstorm in Seattle, the quarterfinals of the ITA Division I Women's National Team Indoor Championships were played today, with the top four seeds advancing.  Top seed Stanford squeezed past No. 6 seed Texas 4-3, with Emily Arbuthnott clinching for the Cardinal at line 4.

The only top 4 seed to fail to advance to the semifinals is Vanderbilt, who lost to No. 5 Georgia 4-3, with Maria Lourdes Carle clinching for the Bulldogs at line 3.  But it was Georgia's Elena Christofi who will go down as the hero, coming from 5-0 down in the third set and saving two match points to beat Emily Smith at line 5 to give Carle her chance to close it out.

The afternoon matches were less exciting affairs, with No. 2 seed North Carolina taking out No. 7 seed UCLA 4-1 and No. 3 seed Duke beating No. 6 seed Pepperdine by the same score.

Stanford and Georgia will meet at 10 am Pacific on Monday, with Duke and defending champion North Carolina scheduled to play at 4 p.m.

See the Slam Tennis site for links to live scoring and live streaming.

See College Tennis Today for updates on all the collegiate tennis action on a very busy weekend.

Mitchell Krueger won his first career ATP Challenger title, coming from a set and a break down against top seed Mackenzie McDonald to record a 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-1 win in his hometown of Dallas.  The 25-year-old Krueger, who recently moved back to Dallas from Orlando and is working with his former junior coach Dave Licker again, started off the year by qualifying for the Australian Open and with this title at an ATP 110 Challenger will be at a career-high of 160 in tomorrow's ATP rankings.  McDonald, a finalist last year in Dallas, had looked dominant all week, but Krueger, the No. 14 seed, kept his cool when he lost his 4-2 lead in the second set, winning the tiebreaker without much difficulty. McDonald was definitely not sharp in the second half of the match and Krueger took full advantage.

In the doubles final played earlier today, unseeded Marcos Giron and Dennis Novikov, former UCLA teammates, won the title, beating unseeded Ante Pavic of Croatia and Ruan Roelofse (Illinois) of South Africa 6-4, 7-6(3).  It's Novikov's fifth Challenger doubles title, while Giron had not won a Challenger doubles title before today.

Rain in Southern California has delayed the final of the $15,000 ITF World Tennis Tour men's event in Claremont. Florida State senior Lucas Poullain, a qualifier, is set to take on former Cornell standout and No. 1 seed Colin Sinclair of the Northern Mariana Islands for the title.

The US Fed Cup team was unable to keep its home court advantage Sunday against the Australians, with Ashleigh Barty and Priscilla Hon taking the deciding doubles match over Nicole Melichar and Danielle Collins 6-4, 7-5.  Madison Keys lost to Barty 6-4, 6-1 to give Australia a 2-1 lead, but Collins beat Daria Gavrilova 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 to send the match to the deciding doubles.  The US will now need to play and win in April to keep their place in the World Group.  For more on today's matches, see the Fed Cup website.