North Carolina's No. 15 duo of junior Hayley Carter and senior Whitney Kay came up with the second-place trophy in the Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships on Sunday afternoon in Pacific Palisades, Calif.
They fell in the doubles finals to No. 3 Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr of California, capping off the week-long tournament for UNC.
Carter and Kay picked up some notable victories en route to their 6-1, 6-4 championship loss. In the quarterfinals, the duo knocked off No. 1 Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan of Florida with apparent ease, winning 8-2. They then sealed their spot in the championship match with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 20 Ellen Perez and Mariana Gould of Georgia in the semifinals.
Carter lasted the longest in the singles side of the tournament of any Tar Heel, finally falling 6-3, 6-2 to Virginia’s Julia Elbaba in the semifinals of the consolation bracket.
Carter had previously been upset by unseeded Ronit Yurovsky of Michigan 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 in the second round of the main draw singles.
Other Tar Heel performances included first-year Jessie Aney, who fell in singles qualifiers to No. 29 Perez. She had preceded this loss with two upset victories against No. 73 Wendy Zhang from Miami and No. 34 Courtney Colton from Vanderbilt. Kay also competed in singles and fell 6-4, 6-3 to No. 23 Jasmine Lee of Mississippi State.
Seniors Ashley Dai and Kate Vialle fell in qualifying doubles to Tess Bernard-Feigenbaum and Krisztina Kapitany of Purdue.
Quotable
“To be honest, not much didn’t go well. Towards the end we just got a little nervous, we didn’t execute as well as we would have liked today and (Manasse and Starr) just played a better match today. It’s the highest level tournament you can play in college tennis, so for us to play so well was amazing, and when you’re playing that kind of opponent every day sometimes you don’t come out on top.” — Carter said after finishing as the runner up in the doubles finals with Kay.
