Photograph by Miya Tanner for Texas Student Media
Four unseeded players, including two wild cards, advanced Friday to the semifinals of the H-E-B Women’s Pro Tennis Open at the Texas Tennis Center. Wild card Malaika Rapolu, the recent Longhorn graduate from the Austin suburbs, defeated Rinon Okuwaki of Japan, 6-1, 6-3. Rapolu, pictured above, hasn’t lost a set in her first three matches here. She’ll be facing Haruka Kaji, the 30-year-old Japanese player who had her first easy match of the tournament, winning by 6-1, 6-1 over fifth-seeded Sophie Chang. “Every day is a tough match,” Kaji said with a smile.
Rapolu said it “felt amazing” to be back at the Texas Tennis Center. “I know that in May it was my last college match here, and I just didn’t know if I was going to come back to play a match here,” she said. “A few of the fans came out, so it was awesome.”
Rapolu was down early against Okuwaki but said she wasn’t deterred. “I think I just came in with the mindset to just fight for every point no matter what happens, no matter what the score is.” She said.
The other semifinal will feature two players who had to grind out three-set victories in singles and championship tiebreaks in doubles on Friday. Whitney Osuigwe overcame injuries to both feet in her 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 victory over No. 8 Carol Zhao of Canada. Osuigwe took a long medical timeout at 1-2 in the second set and stayed tough at the start of the third, when both players exchanged breaks. Osuigwe will face Karina Miller, a wild card from Michigan, who defeated Jaimee Fourlis of Australia, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-4.
The top-seeded pair of Osuigwe and Alana Smith rallied for a 1-6, 6-4, 10-8 victory over No. 4 Jiangxue Han and Yujia Huang of China. “The first set went pretty bad, and we were making jokes that we can only go up from there, and it did,” Osuigwe said.
Regarding her injuries, Osuigwe said: “I have tonight to recover. Hopefully that goes great, but you always have injuries in tennis, so I’ll just work my way through it.
In the doubles final, Osuigwe and Smith will face the unseeded pair of Diae El Jardi and Thaisa Grana Predretti, who defeated Miller and Amelia Honer, 6-4, 5-7, 10-5.