Division III Women's Singles Bracket

SUMTER, SC (October 9, 2014) – Freshman Kate Christensen (Los Angeles, CA/Connections Academy) played her way into the semifinals of the Division III singles bracket at the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships Thursday morning, knocking off No. 3 seed Andrea Madrigal of La Verne 7-6, 6-4.

"The match was very interesting with a pattern of both players consistently trading two games in a row it seemed," said head coach Kathy Campbell. "It was back-and-forth the whole time with a lot of momentum shifts, and Kate did a great job of fighting back, staying positive and picking up her game when she needed to."

The match proved to be tightly contested with several long points, as singles play for the Division III bracket opened up at 8:30 am at the Palmetto Tennis Center. Christensen found a rhythm early on, going up 2-1 then 3-2 in the first set against Madrigal. The junior La Verne product came back though, winning three straight games to take a 5-3 lead. Christensen didn't waiver however, battling back to tie the set a five all.

Madrigal positioned herself for a set victory, going up 6-5 with set point on the line. Christensen fought off the point, and broke the serve to eventually even the game 6-6. In the tiebreak, Christensen went up again 4-2, before Madrigal fought to 4-4. Christensen finally sealed a set victory winning two consecutive points to take the tiebreak 8-6 and come out ahead in the set 7-6.

Madrigal took control of the second set, going up 2-0 early, before Christensen regained her form to equalize at 2-2. Madrigal went up 4-3 after the players alternated victories over the next three games, before Christensen hammered out three consecutive victories to earn the set 6-4 and win her first ever match at the ITA Small College Championships.

Christensen has now won 12 consecutive singles matches without dropping a set dating back to September 20, and will look to keep her streak going into tomorrow. She will face sophomore Megan Humphreys of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater tomorrow in the semifinals at 10:30 am. Humphreys earned her spot in the semis with a comeback victory over Texas Lutheran's Sofia Vega (2-6, 7-5, 6-3) in the first round today.

On the other side of the bracket, Ashnaa Rao of Johns Hopkins upset top seeded Caroline Ward 6-1, 6-3 while Emory's Beatrice Rosen knocked off Rebecca Ho of Washington University-St. Louis 2-6, 7-6, 6-1 to advance to the semifinals.