ATHENS, Ga. — Sophomore Margarita Karnaukhova continued her run through the NCAA Women’s Tennis Singles Tournament with a straight-set victory on Tuesday at the University of Georgia. Karnaukhova defeated Old Dominion’s Nataly Cahana, 6-1, 7-6 (7-3), to advance to the third round where she will meet Stanford’s Amber Liu on Wednesday.Karnaukhova, who is ranked 42nd in the latest Div. I poll, knocked off ninth-ranked Agata Cioroch of Georgia in the first round before downing the 30th-ranked Cahana. Karnaukhova wasted little time winning the first set. The Krasnodar, Russia native won the first three games before Cahana got on the board. Karnaukhova then answered with three more games to win the set, 6-1.
The momentum continued in the second set as Karnaukhova jumped to a 2-0 lead. The pair then traded games to make the score 4-4 before Cahana took her first, and only, lead at 5-4. Karnaukhova responded by winning the next two games to pull ahead, 6-5, before Cahana held serve to force a tie-breaker.
The matchup on Wednesday will pit Karnaukhova against the defending NCAA Singles Champion. Liu is currently ranked seventh in the latest College Tennis Online poll but received the fourth seed for the tournament. She has had little trouble in the first two rounds, defeating Pepperdine’s Natalie Braverman, 6-3, 6-0, and Dea Sumantri of Washington, 6-2, 6-4.
Karnaukhova becomes the first Big Sky Conference player to advance to the third round of the NCAA Tournament. She is also one of just three remaining players not from the Pacific-10 Conference (4), Southeastern Conference (4), Atlantic Coast Conference (2), Big East (1), Big 10 (1) or Big 12 (1). The other two players are third-seeded Jelena Pandzic of Fresno State and Barbara Zahnova of BYU. Karnaukhova, Zahnova and Jennifer Magley of Florida are also the only unseeded players remaining in the field. Prior to the tournament, the NCAA seeded the top 16 players.
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