Michigan
NCAA Doubles Championship
DaCosta, Delicata Victorious in NCAA Doubles Opener
5/24/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
ATHENS, Ga. -- Senior Michelle DaCosta (Huber Heights, Ohio/Wayne HS) and sophomore Kara Delicata (LaSalle, Ontario/Sandwich Secondary) of the University of Michigan women's tennis team earned a thrilling comeback victory over Tulane's Darya and Maria Ivanov in the first round of the 2005 NCAA Doubles Championship Tuesday afternoon (May 24) at Georgia's Dan Magill Tennis Complex. After dropping the first set 6-4, DaCosta and Delicata battled back and won the next two frames, 7-6(6), 6-4, to advance to the round of 16 at the national tournament for the second straight year.
DaCosta and Delicata found themselves in a hole early on, falling behind 3-0 in the first set. The U-M pair fought back and trailed by a score of 5-4, but the Ivanov sisters held serve and claimed the decisive sixth game.
Holding a 4-1 lead in the second frame, DaCosta and Delicata were broken and the Green Wave tandem eventually knotted the score at 4-4. The teams exchanged games until the tiebreaker set, in which the Wolverine duo slipped by with an 8-6 decision to even the match at one set apiece.
In the third and decisive set, DaCosta and Delicata broke serve to go ahead 3-2, and then held from that point on to win 6-4 and advance to the second round.
DaCosta and Delicata will meet a familiar foe in the round of 16 on Wednesday (May 25, 2 p.m.), as they will square off against Northwestern's No. 2-ranked tandem of Audra Cohen and Cristelle Grier. The two teams split a pair of matches during the 2004-05 season, with Cohen and Grier posting an 8-2 win in the ITA Midwest Regional Championship semifinals (Oct. 14) before DaCosta and Delicata returned the favor with an 8-6 triumph at the Big Ten Conference Championship (May 1).
Q U O T E S
U-M Head Coach Bitsy Ritt
On tomorrow's match against Cohen and Grier ... "We've played them before; we're 1-1 against them this season. We know their style of play and they know ours. The key for us is to bring a lot of energy and intensity. We have to serve well against them and we have to make sure we're aggressive. The last time we played them and beat them, we did a great job of controlling the net and putting pressure on them. We're looking forward to another great match against Northwestern."
On playing a best-of-three-sets format at NCAAs ... "We've actually played this format three or four times in practice, which I think will help us a lot. Doubles is such a game of momentum, and after each set you have to be ready to get off to a good start again and put it all out there. Thankfully we are playing two-out-of-three sets because we did get off to a slow start today. We're not going to be able to afford that tomorrow. We have to be energized from the first point. A long pro-set in doubles is usually about and hour and 15 minutes. Today's match lasted three hours. I think that's going to help us. We played a lot of tennis today and we are feeling really confident. We're just looking forward to a great match against a great team."
N O T E S
DaCosta and Delicata hold a career record of 2-1 at the NCAA Doubles Championship. Last season, the pair defeated Kentucky's Sarah Foster and Aibika Kalsarieva (6-3, 6-1) in the first round before falling to Marshall's Jessica Johnson and Ashley Kroh (6-1, 4-6, 6-4) in the round of 16.
With a victory tomorrow, DaCosta and Delicata would be the first duo in Michigan women's tennis history to advance to the quarterfinals at the NCAA Doubles Championship.
DaCosta and Delicata improve to 25-10 overall and 4-6 against nationally-ranked opponents in 2004-05.
Contact: Marc Ressler (734) 763-4423
Players Mentioned
