Printer-Friendly Format     E-mail this article     Buck and Tefft survived yet another three set match Saturday afternoon

Become first Irish team to accomplish the feat

May 24, 2008

Notre Dame, Ind. - In what has become a common trend, the Irish duo of Brook Buck and Kelcy Tefft defeated another opponent in a full three set match. On Saturday, the team was faced up against the USC tandem of Amanda Fink and Gabriela Niculescu, who were seeded as a No. 5-8 seed.

The Irish again struggled to get anything going in the first set as they fell behind early. The team found themselves down 5-2 and looking at falling behind one set to none for the third straight day. They would mount a small comeback, however, as they held serve and broke to get the set back to 5-4. Unfortunately, USC would keep the Irish trend going by breaking Notre Dame's serve to secure the first set, 6-4.

As the second set began, the Irish turned up the effort and took a firm grasp on the match. Buck and Tefft would break the first game and go on to an impressive 6-3 second set victory. The third set saw Notre Dame show dominance over the Trojan tandem. Buck and Tefft would not surrender a game in the set to Fink and Niculescu, as they wrapped up the set and the match (4-6, 6-3, 6-0).

With the victory, Buck and Tefft will participate in the semifinals of the NCAA championships on Sunday, May 25. It will mark the first time that any Irish team has reached this point in the tournament. The quarterfinals had been reached four times previous to this year, with all of those teams failing to make the semifinals.

Buck and Tefft will be taking on the team of Melanie Gloria and Tinesta Rowe out of Fresno State. First serve for the semifinal match is tentatively scheduled for 4:00 p.m. (ET). The winning team will face either UCLA's Tracey Lin and Riza Zalameda or Fresno State's Renata Kucerkova and Anastasia Petukhova in the final on Monday afternoon.

Continue to visit UND.com for news on the third-seeded doubles team of Tefft and Buck in the doubles championships Semifinal match on Sunday afternoon. Live scoring and video of all NCAA Division I Tennis Championship events are available through the University of Tulsa's official athletics website, www.tulsahurricane.com.