uncunc
Women's Tennis

Contributions Throughout

ORLANDO - Throughout its tourney run, No. 3 Stanford has received contributions from all nine of its postseason-eligible players. So, it was only fitting to reach its fourth straight NCAA final thanks to a rare double-clinch.

Michaela Gordon and Janice Shin were officially credited with the double-clinch, securing Stanford's 5-2 victory over North Carolina on Saturday afternoon at the USTA National Campus in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championships.

The most decorated program in college history and the winningest program on The Farm, defending NCAA champion Stanford (27-1, 10-0 Pac-12) will play in its fourth consecutive final with the hopes of repeating for the first time since a three-year run in 2004-06.

Stanford is riding a 22-match winning streak and owns a 49-5 record during the month of May since 2010, a stretch that has produced four NCAA titles (2010, 2013, 2016, 2018).

The Cardinal will square off against either Duke or Georgia, which handed Stanford its only loss of the season back in February. The NCAA championship match is scheduled for Sunday and will be televised on Tennis Channel, with a start time of not before 2 p.m. PT.

With Stanford needing one point to clinch, Gordon and Shin were both serving for their matches at the Nos. 1 and 5 courts, respectively. Shin's match actually concluded 11 seconds earlier, however the official ruling was that because both points were in progress simultaneously, the final team score of 5-2 was awarded.

The Cardinal was in command from the start, capturing the doubles point for a 1-0 lead. That allowed Stanford – which had lost the doubles point in each of its last two matches – to play extremely aggressive in singles.

The lead was extended to 2-0 when Melissa Lord picked up her 100th career singles victory in the form of a 6-1, 6-3 triumph over seventh-ranked Alexa Graham at the No. 2 spot.

A late substitution into the lineup at No. 6, freshman Sara Choy made the most of her opportunity with a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Alle Sanford. Choy, who actually entered the postseason with a No. 119 national ranking despite only playing 16 matches, was taking the court for the first time since playing in only her second dual match back on March 30 at USC.

North Carolina (33-2, 14-0 ACC) fought back with pair of unlikely victories, trimming the deficit to 3-2. Both were uncharacteristic defeats for Stanford, with Caroline Lampl's 23-match winning streak since Jan. 18 finally coming to an end and Emily Arbuthnott suffering her first straight-set loss since Feb. 11.

Shin remained unbeaten in seven career NCAA matches while Gordon knocked off the highest-ranked player in her career in the fifth-ranked Jones.

Stanford, which has won 19 of the possible 37 NCAA championships, owns a 158-19 all-time record in the postseason since the NCAA Tournament went to its present format in 1982. The Cardinal has won 20 national titles overall in school history, also claiming the 1978 AIAW crown.

Despite Stanford's profile as the sport's gold standard, it's only the second time over the last 11 years that the Cardinal has entered NCAA's seeded higher than No. 5 (Stanford was No. 1 in 2011). Remarkably, Stanford has won its last four NCAA championships as a No. 8 seed or lower. In 2018, No. 15 Stanford duplicated its 2016 NCAA title run as the lowest-seeded team to win an NCAA championship. In 2013, Stanford won it all as a No. 12 seed. In 2010, the Cardinal claimed the crown as a No. 8 seed.

No. 3 Stanford 5, No. 1 North Carolina 2

DOUBLES
1) No. 19 Lampl/Kimberly Yee (STAN) d. No. 2 Aney/Graham (UNC) 6-4
2) No. 12 Jones/Morra (UNC) d. No. 29 Arbuthnott/Gordon (STAN) 6-4
3) Lord/Shin (STAN) d. Daavettila/Sanford (UNC) 6-3
Order of Finish: 3, 2, 1

SINGLES
1) No. 24 Michaela Gordon (STAN) d. No. 5 Makenna Jones (UNC) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4
2) No. 29 Melissa Lord (STAN) d. No. 7 Alexa Graham (UNC) 6-1, 6-3
3) No. 20 Sara Daavettila (UNC) d. No. 66 Caroline Lampl (STAN) 1-6, 7-5, 6-2
4) No. 46 Cameron Morra (UNC) d. No. 44 Emily Arbuthnott (STAN) 6-3, 6-4
5) No. 108 Janice Shin (STAN) d. Jessie Aney (UNC) 3-6, 6-4, 6-2
6) No. 119 Sara Choy (STAN) d. Alle Sanford (UNC) 7-5, 6-1
Order of Finish: 2, 6, 4, 3, 5, 1

Head Coach Lele Forood
"It's really unusual in a semifinal match, to think you're going to get through it and not have some sort of counterattack from the other team. These are very good teams, of course they are going to come back and make their push. They did a really nice job. They forced the three matches to three sets; that was a big deal. Of course, these guys (Gordon and Shin) both lost their first sets. But they also dug back in for the second sets and did a really nice job to get to a position where they could finish for us."

Sophomore Michaela Gordon
"For me, I wasn't really aware of clinching. I was really just trying to focus on my own court. I could hear all of the cheering and I knew that Janice [Shin] was doing really well, but I didn't want to think about it, I just wanted to focus on my own match."

"I was really just being brave on the big points. I kind of amped up my aggression, and I think that's what really helped me out in those big points and helped me get the edge there."

"Just based on our matches before, we always have the confidence, no matter what we're seeded. Also, the closeness of the team and the team atmosphere… we have so much belief in each other. No matter if we're seeded No. 3 or No. 13 or whatever it is, we always know we can do well if we do our games."

Sophomore Janice Shin
"We all hopefully want to clinch and that's something we all strive to do, but we all want to make sure we take care of our match and not let that chance away, so we try to focus on getting our point."

"Her game was very interesting. It's not a lot of pace, so I have to make it all on my own. It kind of got in my head that I had to set up the entire point to hopefully reach my goal of finishing off the point the way I wanted to. So that was my goal, to finish the point the way I wanted to."