STANFORD, Calif. – No. 2 Stanford overcame an early deficit to cruise past Colorado 4-1 on Friday afternoon in the opening round of the ITA Kickoff Weekend at Taube Family Tennis Stadium.
Stanford (4-0) will next face Maryland on Saturday at 2 p.m. with a spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship in Seattle (Feb. 9-12) on the line. Maryland defeated UNLV 4-1 earlier Friday morning.
For the first time since last March, the Cardinal dropped the doubles point but recovered to win the match. Colorado (1-1), which is scheduled to visit The Farm again on March 23 during conference play, gained the early advantage thanks to doubles victories on courts No. 2 and 3.
Trailing 1-0, Stanford rattled off four convincing singles wins to secure the contest.
Alexis Blokhina and Valencia Xu won matches within a two-minute span to give the Cardinal a 2-1 lead. Katherine Hui’s 6-1, 6-3 triumph put Stanford on the verge of clinching before Connie Ma’s 6-3, 6-1 win at the No. 2 spot made it official.
Stanford, which has won 102 of its last 108 matches at Taube Family Tennis Stadium, is seeking its third straight ITA Indoors appearance and chasing its first tournament title at the event since 2011.
No. 2 Stanford 4, Colorado 1
DOUBLES
1) No. 27 Blake/Blokhina (STAN) led El Sayed/Rebec (CU) 5-3, suspended
2) Mila Stanojevic/Elys Ventura (CU) d. No. 28 Ma/Yepifanova (STAN) 6-2
3) Ema Bubalo/Anya Nelson (CU) d. Hui/Xu (STAN) 6-3
Order of Finish: 2, 3
SINGLES
1) Aya El Sayed (CU) led No. 48 Angelica Blake (STAN) 6-3, 4-3, suspended
2) No. 11 Connie Ma (STAN) d. Elys Ventura (CU) 6-3, 6-1
3) No. 49 Alexandra Yepifanova (STAN) led Mila Stanojevic (CU) 6-2, 6-5, suspended
4) No. 64 Alexis Blokhina (STAN) d. Pia Rebec (CU) 6-0, 6-2
5) Katherine Hui (STAN) d. Carri Hayes (CU) 6-1, 6-3
6) No. 50 Valencia Xu (STAN) d. Ellen Puzak (CU) 6-1, 6-1
Order of Finish: 4, 6, 5, 2
Maryland 4, UNLV 1
DOUBLES
1) Kovacs/Vinahradava (UNLV) d. Budin/Miranda (UMD) 6-4
2) Hu/Zhao (UNLV) d. Challa/Ela Platenikova (UMD) 6-4
3) Aher/Fang (UNLV) vs. Brumfield/Liu (UMD) 5-5, suspended
Order of Finish: 1, 2
SINGLES
1) Minorka Miranda (UMD) d. Zita Kovacs (UNLV) 6-1, 6-4
2) Kallista Liu (UMD) d. Salsa Aher (UNLV) 6-1, 6-1
3) Mary Brumfield (UMD) led. Cindy Hu (UNLV) 7-6 (4), 3-1, suspended
4) Hanna Vinahradava (UNLV) led Maria Budin (UMD) 6-3, 5-6, suspended
5) Diya Challa (UMD) d. Coco Zhao (UNLV) 6-2, 6-1
6) Francesca Feodorov (UMD) d. Aura Fang (UNLV) 6-1,…
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