Photograph by Miya Tanner for Texas Student Media
Eighth-seeded Carol Zhao, above, scored an improbable comeback at the H-E-B Women’s Pro Tennis Open on Thursday, defeating Caty McNally, 6-1, 3-6, 7-5, by winning the last 10 points of the match she was on the cusp of losing.
McNally is on the comeback trail after an elbow injury sidelined her top-60 singles and top-15 doubles career. McNally served for the second-round match at 5-4 in the third when she lost a point with the score at deuce. She then whacked a tennis ball into left field at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, the baseball stadium across the fence from the Texas Tennis Center. The score usually would have been Advantage Zhao, but McNally had been given a conduct warning earlier in the match. The chair umpire announced a point penalty and declared the score 5-5 in the final set.
Zhao, ranked No. 270 but once as high as No. 131, held serve at love. At 5-6, McNally sliced a backhand into the net, then hit a slice wide. She then tried to serve and volley, but Zhao blasted her return at McNally’s feet, and the volley fell into the net. McNally ended the match with a double fault.
Zhao’s keys to her victory? “I think trusting myself in the key moments, trusting my intuition,” the 29-year-old Canadian said in her post-match interview. “And I did that today.”
Zhao’s next opponent, Whitney Osguiwe, had a much easier route to the quarterfinals. The 22-year-old Floridian defeated fourth-seeded Irene Burillo Escorihuela of Spain, 6-3, 6-2. The other quarterfinal match in the bottom half of the draw pits Karina Miller and Jaimee Fourlis, who each won in straight sets.
At the top half of the draw, Haruka Kaji continued her strong and dramatic run by defeating Jasmijn Gimbrere, 5-7, 7-5, 6-3. Kaji had upset top-seeded Ekaterina Makarova in three sets in the first round. Her next opponent is fifth-seeded Sophie Chang, who defeated Longhorn Vivian Ovrootsky, 7-5, 4-6, 6-0. Chang, a 27-year-old from Baltimore, is also chasing ranking points to automatically enter qualifying at the Australian Open in January.
Malaika Rapolu, the recent UT graduate, defeated Jamie Loeb, 6-3, 6-3, and will face Rinon Okuwaki, who advanced when Kayla Cross retired at the end of the second set.
The top-seeded doubles team of Alana Smith and Osuigwe, the Americans who have already won two ITF titles this year, won in straight sets to advance to the semifinals. They will face fourth-seeded Jiangxue Han and Yujia Huang of China. The other semifinal features a pair of unseeded teams: Diae El Jardi and Thaisa Gana Predetti vs. Amelia Honer and Karina Miller.