Hammer and Fox advance to NCAA Division III quarterfinals
CLAREMONT – Chapman University women's tennis duo Andrea Hammer and Rachel Fox advanced to the NCAA Division III Championships doubles quarterfinals with a win on Thursday night at the Bizantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont. The Panthers' straight-sets 6-4, 6-3 win over Washington & Lee University (Va.) made history, as they became the first female pair to ever reach the NCAA quarterfinals.
Hammer and Fox will face the tournament's No. 2 seed Jordan Brewer and Gabby Devlin from Amherst College (Mass.) on Friday at approximately 4 p.m.
The Chapman duo won the waiting game and then the match on Thursday, waiting nearly three hours past their scheduled start time due to a scheduling backup on the championship courts. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges is hosting both the men's and women's singles and doubles championships.
After the delay, the Panthers opened up a 3-0 lead in the first set but saw Washington & Jefferson rally back to tie the set at 4-all. Chapman halted the rally there, taking the final two games with Fox serving the last point to win 6-4. In the second set, the Panthers built a 4-1 advantage on their way to a 6-3 win. The Generals never led in the match.
Hammer and Fox improved to 20-5 this season, including a 4-4 mark against regionally-ranked opponents. They become just the second duo in school history to win 20 or more matches in a season.
Earlier in the day, Hammer was eliminated from the NCAA Division III singles championships Round of 32 with a three-set loss to Angela Pratt from Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.). Hammer won the first set 6-4, but Pratt came back to win the final two sets 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the second round.
All of the NCAA Championships information, including schedules, brackets and links to live scoring and video can be found here: http://cmsathletics.org/ncaa/tennischampionships/2014/index
by Doug Aiken
Sports Information Director
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