Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
NCAA Singles Tournament<BR>(Pandzic Semifinals)
Pandzic Breezes Into National Championship Match
5/28/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
May 28, 2004
ATHENS, Ga. - It is perhaps the truest testament to how high a level Jelena Pandzic is currently playing that she can turn what appears to be the most innocuous of errors into the turning point of her biggest match of the year.
And so it was Friday, when sixth-seeded Megan Bradley of Miami (Fla.) led 3-0 and 40-30 on her own serve and then double faulted, allowing Pandzic back into that game, and as it turned out, back into the match.
The third-seeded Pandzic jumped through the brief glimmer of hope presented to her by Bradley and walked away with what ended up being an easy 6-4, 6-1 victory in the semifinals of the NCAA Singles Tournament at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga.
The win moves the freshman Pandzic into the national championship match Saturday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) against fourth-seeded and defending NCAA Singles champion Amber Liu of Stanford, a 6-1, 7-6 (2) winner over Clemson's Julie Coin in the other semifinal.
It will be the second time Pandzic and Liu have met this year. On March 1, the Fresno State standout breezed to a 6-2, 6-2 victory in Palo Alto.
Fittingly, the contest will be a matchup of the tournament's two most dominating players. Neither has lost a set and both have lost just 23 games in their five victories. But Pandzic is quick to point out she is not expecting things to be quite as easy as they were in the previous meeting.
"I played one of my best matches of the year against her," she said. "I played really, really great. It is very difficult to come out and play your best tennis like that."
While Pandzic may not have played her very best against Bradley, the effort she mustered was very close, especially after starting a bit slowly. After dropping her serve twice in the first three games to fall behind 3-0, Pandzic leaped at the opportunity presented to her by Bradley when she double faulted while ahead 40-30 in the fourth game. Pandzic, who on Sunday was named the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Rookie of the Year, broke two points later to make it 3-1, and she was off to the races.
The break seemed to relax the Bulldog freshman, who began to take Bradley's heavily spun groundstrokes earlier, keeping the Hurricane on the move by peppering shots into both corners.
"That was the most important game [at 3-0]," Pandzic said. "If she had won that, she would [have] probably won the whole set...That was the deciding game."
Pandzic's break of Bradley in the fourth game began a string of five in a row by the Split, Croatia, native. After failing to serve out the set at 5-3, she easily broke Bradley, putting the set away with a backhand winner.
The second set was all Pandzic. After holding serve to go ahead 1-0, she once again broke Bradley, who only held serve twice all day. Pandzic continued to pound away at Bradley, often forcing errors from her forehand and backhand side.
Bradley, who dropped to 40-6 on the year, wound up committing 34 errors, including 20 with her forehand. Conversely, Pandzic made only nine errors off the ground.
"I give a lot of credit to her," Bradley said. "She got some good returns in, and she didn't give me many free points on my serve. It was just one of those days."
Although she walked off the court with a smile and for the first time in the tournament allowed that she was very pleased, Pandzic still found room to nitpick at her seemingly very solid effort.
"I served really bad," said Pandzic, who had eight double faults. "I don't know why, [but] my serve is still shaky a little bit. I will practice that later [on Friday evening]."
Pandzic is attempting to become the seventh Fresno State individual ever to claim a national championship. The last came in 2002, when Stephen Abas claimed his third crown in the 125-pound weight class at the NCAA Wrestling Championships. No Bulldog man or woman has ever won a tennis title. The closest was Fredrik Bergh, who lost in the national championship match to USC's Cecil Mamiit in 1996.
Notes:
Tomorrow's national title match will take place on Court 2. It will be the first time Pandzic will play on that court. She is 3-0 on Court 3 and 2-0 on Court 1 ... today's first set took 59 minutes and the second set only 30 ... Pandzic has lost just 23 games the entire tournament ... Friday's conditions were as pleasant as they have been all week. Temperatures were in the low 80's, skies were mostly cloudy and winds were around 10 mph ... other Fresno State individual national champs include track and field's Doug Fraley, Melissa Price, Dutch Warmerdam and Fred Barnes; and wrestling's Stephen Abas and Mike Gallego.
