Clay Wins ITA Summer Circuit Doubles Final
7/26/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
July 26, 2010
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The final leg of the Southeast Region Summer Circuit events concluded on Monday, July 26 at the University of Alabama Tennis Complex. Although Alabama only had one player competing in the women's draw, incoming freshman Alex Clay battled her way to the finals of the singles draw and claimed the championship in the doubles draw.
Clay won her first two singles matches without dropping a game, defeating Erskine College's Victoria Stephens and Powder Springs, Ga., native Macy Polk by identical 6-0, 6-0 scores. She ran into a tough test in the quarterfinals against Auburn's Caroline Thornton. Clay cruised through the first set, taking it 6-2, but Thornton responded to take the second 6-2. The third set, decided by a super tiebreak, went down to the wire, with Clay pulling out the win 13 points to 11 to advance.
Clay found herself in another three set match in the semifinals, also against a future conference foe. Clay once again took the first set comfortably, this time 6-3 against Vanderbilt's Maria Mira, Clay's doubles partner for the tournament. Mira turned things around quickly in the second, only surrendering one game. Clay upped her level of play in the super tiebreak, winning it 10 points to five to move on to the championship match.
In the finals, Clay hung tough in the opening set against Georgia Tech's Viet Ha Ngo, the tournament's top overall seed. Ngo was able to win the first set 6-4, seizing all of the momentum to breeze through the second set without dropping a game to win the title.
As the No. 1 seed in the doubles bracket, Clay and Mira received a bye to the quarterfinals, where they defeated Macy and Cristalei Polk of Powder Springs, Ga., 8-3. It was an all-SEC contest in the semifinals, with Clay and Mira easily getting past Maria Arechavaleta and Olivia Bennett of Auburn 8-1 to move on to the finals. They received their toughest test of the tournament in the final match, facing off against Middle Tennessee's Carla Nava and Yuiri Nomoto, but still won the match by a comfortable score of 8-4.
