TULSA, Okla. – With a victory in the second round of tournament play, senior Frances Altick will competing as one of 16 student-athletes left in the NCAA Singles Tournament.
Thursday’s individual competition began with singles play, as No. 14 Altick faced William and Mary’s 99th-ranked Elizaveta Nemchinov. The 2016 singles All-American flew through her first set against Nemchinov, opening the match with a break and not looking back. With a 6-0, 2-0 lead, the senior Commodore gave up her first game of the second round competition, only to give up one more in her 6-0, 6-2 victory.
“It was pretty windy here today and yesterday,” said Altick. “I made a few errors yesterday so I was trying to cut down on those today and stay in every point, play smart and mix the ball up since it’s hard to play in the wind. I started doing that early, she got frustrated and then kind of ran away with the match.”
With the victory, Altick moved on to the NCAA Singles Round of 16. The Monroe, La. native is the first Commodore to advance to the sweet 16 in singles play since Audra Flak in 2005. Altick is slated to take on Pepperdine’s Luisa Stefani. Stefanie advances to the sweet 16 after knocking off Porubin of Wichita St. and Sadie Hammond of Tennessee.
The Commodore is scheduled to take on one of her highest-ranked opponents Friday at 10:00 am, as Stefani comes in at No. 8 in the nation.
“Being an All-American and getting into the NCAA tournament were definitely goals I had coming into college. Hopefully I can keep going further… I’d never won a round in this tournament before this year so I’m just happy to have won one round. It’s exciting, but hard to do well in individuals, especially after your team does well in the team tournament, because people are kind of tired. But it’s always exciting to be able to represent Vanderbilt for the last time, it’s kind of weird.”
“I just want to go out on a good note and enjoy just being in the college setting and being around these kind of people, getting to use coaches on my court and them helping me out every match.”
While one senior moves on, senior Courtney Colton and junior Sydney Campbell’s illustrious career as one of the top teams in the country comes to a close. The duo fell toPeppersine’s No. 19 Cutura/Maddox in an extremely tight first round match at the Case Tennis Center.
No. 14 Colton/Campbell came out with a break and held serve for the 2-0 lead, but the Waves rallied back for the 4-3 advantage. At 5-4, Waves, VU held serve to save the first set 5-all and broke for a huge 6-5 advantage. Pepperdine broke back sending the first set into a dramatic tiebreaker.
No. 19 Cutura/Maddox, who defeated the Commodore duo earlier in the fall, took the first set breaker 7-6(4).
While the second set looked to be going in Vandy’s favor, again the Waves came through with a few key breaks, ending the Commodores chances of advancement, 7-6(4), 7-5.
Courtney Colton ends her career with a career-high doubles ranking of No. 4 in the nation with Campbell (9/15/15), four appearances in the NCAA doubles tournament as well as a spot on the 2015 and 2016 NCAA All-Tournament Team. The Davie, Fla. native won’t be far next year, as Colton will be attending grad school at Vanderbilt in the fall.
