Oct. 9, 2015
PACIFIC PALISIADES, Calif. Â- After four days of intense competition at the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships, Vanderbilt’s trio of participating Commodores return home after being bounced from tournament play.
The Commodores began Friday with doubles action as No. 4 Courtney Colton and Sydney Campbell took the court in the third round of main draw competition. The Dores faced a tough Pepperdine team, which took an early lead that the Dores could not surmount, falling 8-4.
“It was a tough day today,” said associate head coach Aleke Tsoubanos. “Courtney and Sydney fought but were always playing from behind after having 4 break points in the first game and not converting. That’s a very good, powerful Pepperdine team that took it to us and was just more aggressive and more consistent with their play. We missed an inexcusable amount of service returns and need to work on getting into net more opposed to staying back and being passive.”
Campbell’s day wasn’t over after doubles, as the junior faced Stanford Cardinal and close friend Taylor Davidson in singles back draw. After dropping the first set 6-2, the Franklin, Tenn. native switched gears nearly forcing a third set, but ultimately falling 6-2, 7-5.
“Credit to Taylor (Davidson), she made very few unforced errors, and played her strengths well. Sydney battled back and had chances to close out the second and force a third set, but her targets and consistency were not there today. We have it on film so it’ll be an opportunity to learn and grow from.”
Frances Altick closed out the day for the Commodores, as the senior battled the LSU Tiger’s No. 20 Joana Vale Costa. Altick took early leads in both sets, but Vale Costa played with great resilience winning the consolation match 7-6, 6-3.
“Frances fought hard and nearly closed out her match against an impressive opponent in LSU’s Vale Costa. But Joana fought to the end and brought her game up a level when her back was against the wall. She hardly missed a ball from the middle of the second set through the end of the third and kept Frances under a lot of pressure. It’s okay to be disappointed but not discouraged so we will look to build on the matches from this weekend in preparation for the Ohio Valley regionals at Purdue next week. We would also like to thank our host family, Pam and Tony Harrington for their wonderful hospitality and support of the Dores all week.”