Oct. 7, 2015
PACIFIC PALISAIDES, Calif. – It comes as no surprise that Frances Altick, who to the Commodore faithful is known as one of the hardest working student-athletes on the Vanderbilt women’s tennis team, brought joy to the squad once again by defeating some of the toughest competitors in the country to advance out of qualifying rounds at the Riviera/ITA All-Americans.
Altick, a senior, continued making a name for herself in one of the most elite tournaments of the fall on Wednesday afternoon, defeating Cal’s No. 33 Denise Starr 6-3, 7-5.
“Wow, what a match. Denise (Starr) is an incredible player and Frances went toe to toe with her today,” said associate head coach Aleke Tsoubanos. “No one really grabbed momentum and kept it, but Frances as we’ve so often seen throughout her career found a way. She was down a break late in the second set 5-3 and played focused, stingy tennis to take the last four games of the match. The time and effort she put in this summer is manifesting itself in her play and I’m thrilled to see her advance to represent Vanderbilt in the main draw tomorrow.
The past two days of driven and fearless performances have proven to be fruitful. And after not being able to compete in last year’s tournament main draw, The Monroe, La. will now be able to make up for lost time as she competes against a fellow singles qualifier in Texas’ Breaunna Addison.
“I’ve just been trying to take what I’ve learned from past matches this fall and use those lessons and keep improving,” said Altick. “We’ve been working on the mental aspect as a team, which I think has helped. I’ve been in a good place mentally and just enjoying fighting through some close matches against good opponents.”
With two representatives in main draw singles action and one team in main draw doubles, tomorrow will be an exciting day for the No. 1 Commodores.
Junior Sydney Campbell was selected Wednesday afternoon as the No. 6 seed. Campbell takes on a familiar foe in Alabama’s No. 21 Erin Routliffe.
Later in the afternoon Campbell and Courtney Colton begin their tournament journey in doubles as the third seed. Ranked No. four in the country, the duo looks forward to building off last season’s success. Colton/Campbell will enjoy a bye into the second round of competition where they play the winner of the Deheza/Hristov (Texas A&M) and Castaneda/Fanning (Florida State) match.