The North Carolina women’s tennis team ventured to Las Vegas in its first team tournament of the spring season, capturing a doubles title for the third time in five years at the Freeman Memorial Tennis Championship hosted by UNLV.
What Happened?
The doubles round began slowly for the Tar Heels, who trotted out the first-year/sophomore combo of Kacie Harvey and Sophia Patel to face Stanford’s Emma Higuchi and Sara Choy. UNC’s underclasswomen were unable to handle the veteran Stanford pairing and fell 6-2 in Friday’s opening round of doubles play at the Fertitta Tennis Complex.
Despite an early loss for UNC, the experienced doubles unit comprising of senior Makenna Jones and junior Alle Sanford rebounded to make quick work of the weekend’s competition.
In their first-round matchup on Saturday, the pairing defeated Oklahoma State’s Alana Wolfberg and Dariva Detkovskaya in a convincing 6-2 victory. Their Vegas-inspired hot streak continued when the duo took on OSU’s ranked pairing of No. 17 ranked Lisa Marie Rioux and Ayumi Miyamoto in the doubles semifinal, as the Tar Heels promptly swept them in dominating fashion, 6-0.
In Sunday’s doubles championship, Jones and Sanford enacted revenge against the Stanford squad that eliminated their fellow Tar Heels in the first round. Head coach Brian Kalbas’ veteran duo handled Higuchi and Choy in a comfortable 6-2 title victory. The victory was also sweetened because of last year’s loss to the Cardinal in the NCAA semi-finals.
While doubles success headlined the weekend for UNC, there were also strides made in singles play that should give hope to North Carolina tennis fans for the upcoming spring season. First-year Kacie Harvey began her 2020 campaign with a promising run to the semifinal round of the singles championship. Her defeat of Oklahoma State’s No. 16 ranked Lisa Marie Rioux was impressive enough to earn Harvey ACC Co-Freshman of the Week honors. Her semifinal run — which tied for the highest finish by a Tar Heel alongside No. 36 ranked Alle Sanford — continues what has already been a standout first season for Harvey.
When was it decided?
The Tar Heels faced little resistance on their way to a third doubles championship in five years after back to back titles in 2016-2017. Jones and Sanford only lost four sets out of the 22 they played together. For Harvey’s semi-final streak, it was her upset victory over No. 16 ranked Lisa Marie Rioux in the round of 16 that made her stand out.
