Stillwater, Okla. – South Carolina women’s tennis graduate Ayana Akli and junior Sarah Hamner both advanced to the second round of competition at the NCAA Singles Tournament in Stillwater, Okla., on Monday. The Gamecocks each battled through windy conditions for their victories and will play in Tuesday’s round of 32.
Despite Hamner’s match beginning half an hour earlier, it was Akli who finished her match first thanks to a dominant 6-0, 6-1 victory over No. 36 Casie Wooten of Wake Forest. Akli was unstoppable throughout the match, only giving up one game in the win to advance to the round of 32.
Hamner also booked her trip to the second round with a straight set win, hers over No. 63 Shavit Kimchi of Duke. In the first set, Hamner took and early break to lead but Kimchi took it back to tie things back up at 4-4. The two opponents held serve in their following service games but then were both broken on their next to send the first set to a tiebreaker at 6-6. The breaker was a close one with Hamner ultimately coming out on top 7-6(5).
In the second set, the Gamecock and Blue Devil were again playing a close match but Hamner was able to take a break off of Kimchi while leading 3-2 to extend her lead. From there, Hamner refused to let Kimchi any point games on the board, closing the match out with a 6-2 second set.
In their second round matches, Akli will face No. 51 Amelia Honer of UC Santa Barbara while Hamner will take on No. 9-16 seed Irinia Cantos Siemers of Ohio State.
Akli and Hamner will also begin the NCAA Doubles Tournament on Tuesday against No. 22 Eryn Cayetano and Emma Charney of Southern California. All Tuesday match times are still TBA.
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Singles Round of 64
(11) Ayana Akli (SC) def. (36) Casie Wooten (WF) 6-0, 6-1
(19) Sarah Hamner (SC) def. (63) Shavit Kimchi (Duke) 7-6(5), 6-2