TULSA, Okla. – The seventh-ranked duo of Catherine Harrison and Kyle McPhillips advance to the doubles quarterfinals at the NCAA Division I Women's Tennis Doubles Championship. The Bruin pair punched their ticket to the Elite Eight with a straight-set win over Kiah Generette and Blair Shankle of Baylor.
"We're really excited," said Harrison of advancing. "We've never won a match in postseason together before. We're pretty pumped. Hopefully, we can keep it up tomorrow."
Onto the quarters! Cat/Kyle defeat Baylor 6-1, 7-6(2) and advance to the NCAA doubles elite eight!! pic.twitter.com/uiKWxU7Hsh
— UCLA Women's Tennis (@uclawtennis) May 27, 2016
Harrison and McPhillips dictated the pace of the match from the start, winning 10 of the first 12 points over Baylor en route to a 3-0 lead. Generette and Shankle were unable to keep pace, dropping the first set to the UCLA duo, 6-1.
The second set was a back-and-forth battle. Knotted at 4-4, Harrison and McPhillips held to regain the lead. The Baylor pair won two straight, first holding and then breaking their Bruin opponents, to go ahead 6-5. Harrison and McPhillips broke back to even the score at 6-6 and send the set into a tiebreaker. The Bruins then coasted to a 7-2 advantage in the breaker to take the match in straights.
"They were executing better in the second set," said McPhillips. "But we made more plays and made more shots."
"I thought we played much, much better than yesterday," said Harrison of their performance over the past two days. "We started off well, which helped us. I think we caught them off guard a little bit, because they're a really good team. The fact that we were able to get the first set really quickly helped us out a lot before they started making some more balls, making some more plays. Overall, I thought it was a lot better."
Harrison and McPhillips face second-ranked Mami Adachi and Aldila Sutjadi of Kentucky in the doubles quarterfinals at 10 a.m. PDT on Saturday. Live streaming/scoring is available here.
2016 NCAA Singles & Doubles Championship
May 25-30
Tulsa, Oklahoma (Michael D. Case Tennis Center)
Singles
Round of 64
No. 17 Catherine Harrison (UCLA) def. No. 58 Caroline Dailey (South Carolina), 6-0, 6-3
Round of 32
No. 1 Hayley Carter (UNC) def. No. 17 Catherine Harrison (UCLA), 6-1, 7-5
Doubles
Round of 32
No. 7 Harrison/McPhillips (UCLA) def. No. 57 Ip/Smith (Rice), 7-5, 5-7, 1-0(4)
Round of 16
No. 7 Harrison/McPhillips (UCLA) def. No. 20 Generette/Shankle (Baylor), 6-1, 7-6(2)