MASON, Ohio — An in-state rivalry decided who goes to the NCAA Doubles Championships from the Ohio Valley region, and Vanderbilt came out on top.
Vanderbilt senior Valeria Ray and junior Sophia Webster beat Tennessee’s Sarah Mildren and Alyson Shannon 6-2, 7-6 (6) on Tuesday to win the ITA Ohio Valley Regional Championships doubles title at the Lindner Family Tennis Center.
The Tennessee pair had reached the final by knocking out another Vanderbilt team, Erin Pearce and Mia Yamakita, in a 12-10 match tiebreak in Monday’s semifinals. Ray and Webster, ranked No. 29 nationally, needed three sets of their own Monday to get past Indiana. Another Tennessee school made noise in singles, where Lipscomb’s Mariia Dolzhenko beat Ray 7-5, 6-4 the same day.
In the final, Vanderbilt took the opening set 6-2. Tennessee pushed back in the second, going up 5-3 after breaking serve, before the Commodores leveled it at 5-5 and forced a tiebreaker. The Vols led the tiebreak 6-4 but could not convert two straight match points, and a Webster volley closed it out 8-6.
Only the doubles champion from each of the ITA’s 13 regions earns an automatic spot in the NCAA Doubles Championships, which Georgia hosts Nov. 17-22. It is Webster’s second straight regional doubles title and the first regional title of Ray’s career.
Tennessee sent six singles players and four doubles teams to the regional. Vanderbilt does not play again in October; its next event is the ITA Sectional Championships and Conference Masters Championships Nov. 5-8, the final qualifying chance for the NCAA individual championships.
