For Day 4 of the H-E-B Women’s Pro Tennis Open at the Texas Tennis Center, age ain’t nothing but a number.
The first match on Court 3 pits a couple of American teenagers who took very different routes to the second round. Clervie Ngounoue (left), the 16-year-old Australian Open junior doubles champion, faces 19-year-old qualifier Madison Sieg, a USC player who was a top junior in New England. Ngounoue, the Washington D.C. player who received a wild card into the event, defeated her doubles partner, Liv Hovde, 7-5, 6-3, on Wednesday. Sieg escaped with a 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-2) victory over Catherine Harrison, who started cramping on one of her match points.
Action on Court 1 starts with fifth-seeded Jamie Loeb, the 27-year-old American, facing Anita Sahdiieva, a 19-year-old Ukrainian who plays for Baylor. In the opening round, Loeb defeated Kylie Collins, the former Longhorn now LSU Tiger, by the roller-coaster score of 6-0, 1-6, 6-1. Loeb won the 2015 NCAA singles title for North Carolina.
The second match on Court 3 features top-seeded Fernanda Contreras Gomez, the 24-year-old Mexican who made a surprising run in a major event in Tokyo last week, against American Ashley Lahey, who played Pepperdine. Lahey is only 22, but she’s already demonstrated maturity off the court, winning the Catalyst Award earlier this week for raising funds to build a hospital in Uganda.
Two singles matches have University of Texas tennis roots. Starting at noon on Court 2, sixth-seeded Peyton Stearns, who won this year’s NCAA singles title for the Longhorns before turning pro, faces Martyna Kubka, 21, of Poland. Current Longhorn Nicole Khirin, a 21-year-old from Israel, will face Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia. On Tuesday, Khirin advanced to the second round by upsetting eighth-seeded Eva Guerrero Alvarez, 6-4, 5-7, 6-1.
Photo by Kayla Thompson