Six members of the Case Western Reserve University women's tennis team advanced to the second day of the main draw of the ITA Fall Central Region Championship held on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis on Friday.
In doubles play, three of the four Spartan pairings reached the round of 16 and will play tomorrow in the Main Draw. After receiving a bye in the first round, the top-seeded duo of juniors Hannah Kassaie and Lily McCloskey defeated Jamie Hurst and Julianne Sheldon from Ohio Northern 8-1 in the round of 32. The partnership will face ninth-seeded Ainsley Heidbreder and Nina Moravek from host WashU in the round of 16.
The seventh-seeded pairing of junior Radha Patel and sophomore Katalina Wang received a first-round bye then bested Sophia Strupovets and Margaret Bugnacki of Lake Forest 8-5 in the second round. Patel and Wang will take on ninth-seeded Sarena Biria and Brooke Pedersen from the University of Chicago tomorrow morning for a berth in the quarterfinals.
Seniors Katherine Wang and Pallavi Goculdas defeated Lydia Zafeiri and Freya Rahm of Oberlin 8-1 in the first round. The Spartan duo followed the win with an upset of Denison's ninth-seeded partnership of Dasha Christyakova and Kendall Schrader by a score of 8-4. They will face Natalie Connelly and Ana Brand of Kenyon in round of 16.
The fourth Spartan pair of sophomore Asha Shukla and junior Anna Kan earned a win over Grace Gardner and Katherine Taylor of Transylvania 8-3 in the first round. Shukla and Kan took fourth-seeded Karen Gao and Eleanor Archer of WashU to tiebreakers, but the Spartans ultimately lost 7-8 (5-7).
In the main singles draw, McCloskey, Patel, and Kassaie will play in the round of 16 tomorrow after wins on Friday.
Seventh-seeded McCloskey defeated Amber Edmonds of WashU 6-2, 6-4 in the first round and bested Caitlyn Hanulikova of Augustana 6-2, 6-0 in the round of 32. She will face ninth-seeded Natalie Bassett from North Central in the round of 16.
Ninth-seeded Patel bested Franciscan's Olivia Colby 6-0, 6-1 in her first match of the day and advanced to the round of 16 by defeating Janaki Jagannathan of Wooster 6-1, 6-0. Tomorrow Patel will take on WashU's Gao, who is seeded fifth.
Kassaie, seeded third in the draw, won over Kalamazoo's Juliana Pullen 6-0, 6-1 before earning a 6-2, 6-3 win over Biria from Chicago. In the round of 16, she will face Erin Storrer of Otterbein.
The final Spartan in the main singles draw, Katalina Wang, won her first match 6-1, 6-0 over Elina Locane of Trine, but fell to second-seeded Eleni Lazaridou of Kenyon 2-6, 1-6 in the round of 32.
In the smaller color draws, all four Spartans advanced to the semifinals. Fourth-seeded senior Chloe Ku will play second-seeded Randi Hendricks in the Blue semifinal after two wins. Top-seeded sophomore Elsa Syed, who earned a bye to the quarterfinals, will face fourth-seeded Katie Finerman of WashU in the Green semifinal after she won her quarterfinal match. In the Red draw, Shukla, who had the number one seed and earned a win in the quarterfinal, will face unseeded Brand from Kenyon in the semifinal. Finally, in the Yellow draw, third-seeded Kan will play Chicago's Pedersen, the top seed, in the semifinal after a pair of wins on Friday.
Play continues at the Dwight Davis Tennis Courts in St. Louis tomorrow with doubles action slated to start at 9 a.m. and singles play beginning at 12 p.m.
