DAY TWO SINGLES | DAY TWO DOUBLES
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Katie Jesperson and Jessa Richards won two more doubles matches on Saturday and earned a spot in the doubles finals of the USTA/ITA Cental Region Championships. Both players were ousted in the round of 16 in singles before punching their ticket to the doubles championship.
Looking to exact some revenge from Augustana's singles matches, Jesperson and Richards took down doubles pairings from Northeastern State and Arkansas Tech to earn a spot in tomorrow's championship match at 1 p.m.
Houda Bellamine defeated Jesperson in the third round of the singles tournament and her partner Martina Bruzikova beat Augustana's Liz Lewis in the first round of the singles tournament yesterday. Jesperson and Richards advanced to the semifinals with an 8-4 win over the Northeastern State duo.
In the semifinals, it was Richards turn to right her singles loss. Arkansas Tech's Olga Leyshyna took down the Vikings' No. 2 singles player in three sets earlier in the day, but the Vikings got the best of Leyshyna and her partner in the doubles semis. Jesperson and Richards advanced to the finals with an 8-4 win over the seventh-seeded doubles pairing and will face top seed Fanni Varga and Christina Zentai in tomorrow's championship match.
Varga and Zentai are both members of the Southwest Baptist team that ended Augustana's season last spring at the NCAA Central Region Championships. The SBU tandem defeated Jesperson and Michelle Wadas 8-0 in last year's No. 1 doubles match.
Richards nearly pulled off another singles upset -- she defeated the 11th seed on day one -- in her round of 16 match against No. 6 seed Leyshyna. After losing set one 6-1, Richards evened the match with a 6-2 second-set win, but fell in the third-set super tiebreaker, 10-4.
Jesperson suffered the same fate in her third round match against the No. 11 seed, NSU's Bellamine. Jesperson dropped her first singles match of the year, losing 6-2, 6-3 to Bellamine, ending her singles run at the regional championships.
The top Vikings doubles pairing will play for a chance to go to the USTA/ITA National Championships in Fort Myers, Fla. in the championship tomorrow at 1 p.m.
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