The No. 5 North Carolina women’s tennis team posted a strong performance against tough competition in the Freeman Memorial Championship in Las Vegas Friday through Sunday.
The tournament was highlighted by the doubles performance of partners Jessie Aney and Alexa Graham, who advanced to the semifinals in doubles and quarterfinals in singles.
What happened?
In its first competition in two months, North Carolina had five singles players and three doubles teams in the tournament. In singles, Aney, Graham, Chloe Ouellet-Pizer and Maggie Kane all competed in the first flight, while Anna Harmon competed in the second flight.
First-year and budding star Alle Sanford and sophomore Sara Daavettila both sat out the tournament because of a rule restricting the number of fall tournaments players can participate in. However, even with only three members of its top six competing, North Carolina did well.
On Friday the first two rounds of singles were contested and the Tar Heels posted five wins and three losses. Kane and Harmon were both eliminated in the first round of their respective flights, but the trio of Graham, Ouellet-Pizer and Aney all advanced to the second round.
While Ouellet-Pizer fell to Izumi Asano of UNLV, doubles partners Aney and Graham outlasted her by one round, each bowing out in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
In doubles, fourth-seeded Makenna Jones and Ouellet-Pizer won their first-round match on Friday, but lost narrowly to UNLV’s Aiwen Zhu and En-Pei Huang in a 7-6 quarterfinal battle. UNC’s Cassandra Vazquez and Kane also participated, but fell to the three-seed in the first round.
Who stood out?
