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Aggie women's tennis team advances to second round of NCAAs

By RICHARD CROOME
Eagle Sports Writer

WACO - Sarah Foster sealed Texas A&M's berth into the second round of the NCAA Women's Tennis Championships with an ace.

Foster's 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory over Texas Christian's Anna Sydorska gave the Aggies a 4-1 victory over a feisty TCU team.

"Honestly, I didn't think it would come down to my match because it was taking so long," Foster said. "But the way it turned out was really cool. It's always fun to clinch it and have a little Gig 'em fest at the end."

A&M (21-6) will face 13th-seeded Baylor (23-6) at 2 p.m. Sunday for the right to move on to Athens, Ga., and the Sweet 16. Baylor beat Oral Roberts 4-0 in the other first round match of the Waco Regional.

Foster's ace was one of the few serving highlights in the No. 2 singles match, which had 10 straight breaks of serve at one point.

"We started totally breaking, and when [Sydorska] held that first time, I knew I was going to have to start holding," Foster said. "My serve really started helping in the second set."

Foster found her serve late in the first set, then got the rest of her game going in the second set.

"That was a huge boost," Foster said of her play late in the first set. "I was down the whole first set, and I was just fighting every point, struggling to stay in the set. Once it was 5-all and 6-all, then I realized I was just as much in the match as she was. I just tried to step it up to get one set behind me."

Foster earned the first three points of the tiebreaker and never trailed, winning it 7-3.

Sydorska never recovered, taking two medical breaks in the second set, one after the first crossover because of the heat and the second to put ice on an injured wrist. She battled to the end, though, coming back from 40-love in the last game to force deuce before Foster won with a backhand winner and the clinching ace.

"Sara has come through with big matches for us," A&M head coach Bobby Kleinecke said. "I was happy that she got the [clinching] win today. We had to hit a lot of balls to get a win and got exactly what we expected from TCU."

A&M moved ahead 2-0 in the team score on Marisa Druss' 6-2, 6-2 victory over Karine Ionesco at No. 6 singles.

Elze Potgieter then fell to the Horned Frogs' highest ranked player (No. 57) Ana Cetnik 6-3, 6-1 at No. 3 singles as TCU (17-11) cut the lead to 2-1.

Minutes later, Nicki Mechem extended her A&M career record for singles victories to 112 and put the Aggies up 3-1 with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Andrea Morgado at No. 5 singles.

Foster closed out the dual match with A&M's No. 1 player Anna Lubinsky and No. 4 player Anna Blagodarova down early in their third sets.

"When you win the doubles point and four of the six first sets [in singles], that's key," Kleinecke said. "It puts you in the driver seat. I felt we were in charge, but we didn't want to let up any. The most impressive thing today was we had our foot down and we didn't let them up."

A&M got it's doubles point from the Nos. 2 and 3 teams.

Blagodarova and Michelle Sammons put away TCU's Morgado and Ionesco 8-5 on the third line, doing their best work with Sammons at the net and Blagodarova hitting winners from the baseline. Blagodarova's backhand winner down the line put the duo up 7-4 in a key game.

Lubinsky and Mechem were in control from start to finsish at No. 2 doubles, with the only real problem coming from the high sun in Mechem's eyes during her serve.

Lubinsky showed off her athleticism at up 5-2 and 30-15 by returning three hard volleys hit right at her before gaining the advantage in the point and putting it away. Lubinsky's volley closed out the final game at love for an 8-4 victory that clinched the doubles point.

"Our two and three doubles [teams] have been very consistent, and we've turned around No. 1 the latter part of the year," Kleinecke said. "I feel good about doubles, but we'll have to find four points somewhere [against Baylor]."