The North Carolina women’s tennis team continued a strong start to its season at the Women’s College Invitational in Malibu, California, from Thursday, Oct. 3 to Sunday, Oct. 6, with first-year Anika Yarlagadda advancing to the finals in her bracket before bowing out.
What happened?
The North Carolina doubles pair of Yarlagadda and junior Alle Sanford advanced to the second round of doubles play with a 6-4 victory against senior Ilze Hattingh and junior Tereza Kolarova from Arizona State. The UNC pair had their run come to an abrupt end in the second round of play, falling to first-year Alexandra Vagramov and sophomore Taylor Johnson of UCLA.
In singles action No.110 Sanford was the lone Tar Heel in the Orange Bracket. In the first day of competition she picked up a convincing victory against Stanford sophomore Niluka Madurawe, before falling to No.14 Ashley Lahey from Pepperdine. Lahey, who knocked standout UNC senior Alexa Graham out of last week’s Oracle ITA Masters, went on to win the Orange Bracket.
The Blue Bracket had two UNC competitors in Yarlagadda and sophomore Sophia Patel. Patel dropped two straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, falling to Pepperdine first-year Lisa Zaar. Yarlagadda won her round of 32 match in impressive fashion, defeating an ACC foe in Florida State’s Nandini Das in two straight sets, 7-5, 6-1.
Yarlagadda went on to defeat another ACC opponent, this time from Duke, Hannah Zhao, in a three-set battle, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4. This would be the last set she dropped until the final, as she handled Arizona State’s Tereza Kolarov in two sets, 6-1, 6-2.
Yarlagadda met a fellow first-year in the final match of the Blue Bracket, Pepperdine’s Lisa Zaar. A back-and-forth battle through the first two sets led to a super tie break, where a decisive final two points gave Zaar the victory.
Who stood out?
Yarlagadda put together an impressive performance in her second tournament for UNC. The Michigan native was the No. 12 overall player in the 2019 recruiting class according to TennisRecruiting.net.
