May 23, 2009
NCAA Championships Tournament CentralSTANFORD, Calif.- Stanford's top doubles team of sophomore Hilary Barte and junior Lindsay Burdette is now one step away from playing for a national championship doubles title.
Barte and Burdette outlasted Northwestern's Lauren Lui and Georgia Rose 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 on Saturday afternoon in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Championship at College Station, Texas.
"The first set we came out playing awesome, exactly like we expected, and I think they were a little tight," said Burdette. "We all were, actually, but we played through it a little bit better than them in the first. And in the second, they started really making us play a lot more balls when we were up at the net. They played a solid second set and we struggled a little bit on the execution side. In the third set, we got our execution going again, especially the volleys close to the set."
Next up for Barte and Burdette is a matchup against Tennessee's Natalie Pluskota and Caitlin Whoriskey on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. PT in the semifinals. Pluskota and Whoriskey, ranked No. 10 in the nation, defeated Stanford's No. 2 doubles team of Carolyn McVeigh and Jessica Nguyen 6-4, 6-3 in the opening round of the tourney.
Saturday's three-set victory provided the first real challenge of the tournament for Barte and Burdette, breezing past the first two rounds while not dropping a set since an 8-6 defeat to USC's Amanda Fink and Gabriela Niculescu back on Mar. 28.
Ranked as the No. 8 duo in the country, Barte and Burdette are now 26-7 overall this year. The pair has been extremely hot recently, riding a 12-match winning streak while posting an 14-6 mark against nationally-ranked opponents.
NCAA Doubles
Round of 16: No. 8 Barte/Burdette (STAN) d. No. 32 Lesniak/Malyarschikova (SMU) 6-2, 6-0
Quarterfinals: No. 8 Barte/Burdette (STAN) d. No. 24 Lui/Rose (NW) 6-2, 3-6, 6-4
Semifinals: No. 8 Barte/Burdette (STAN) versus No. 10 Pluskota/Whoriskey (TENN) - 12:30 p.m. PT