University of Miami women's tennis junior Laura Vallverdu took a three-set triumph (6-4, 5-7, 6-4) over Georgia's Chelsey Gullickson on Sunday evening in the semifinal round of the NCAA Women's Tennis Singles Championships in College Station, Texas. Vallverdu will now play for a chance at the NCAA Singles National Championship on Monday.
The championship match will pit Duke's Mallory Cecil against Vallverdu on Monday.
''Lau is playing the best tennis I've ever seen her play,'' UM coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews said.
``She's going to have a match on her hands tomorrow with Cecil. But I think if Laura keeps up this level of performance, then she's got very good shot at winning a national title.''
In a rematch from the Round of 16 during the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships back in September 2008, the highly anticipated matchup between Georgia's No. 1 singles player and Miami's No. 2 singles player lived up to the hype.
They split the first two sets and played a tense final set.
Gullickson went up 3-1, before Vallverdu bounced back to claim the next two games and tie things up, 3-3. Then there was a one-hour, 43-minute weather delay.
When play resumed, Vallverdu committed two costly errors to fall behind 3-4 and love-40 before winning six consecutive points to tie the match at 4-4.
Vallverdu then commanded the next two games, never trailing en route to a 6-4 decision, and becoming just the second player in school history to advance to the NCAA Championship match. The other was 2007 NCAA champion Audra Cohen.
In the day's other semifinal women's match, Cecil earned her trip to the finals against Miami's No. 1 singles player, Julia Cohen. Cecil upended Cohen 6-1, 6-0.
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