Oct. 7, 2005
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Junior tennis twins Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) and Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) moved into the semifinals of the season’s first grand slam, the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships, with a 9-7 victory over the sixth-ranked team in the country on Friday afternoon at the Riviera Tennis Club. The Thompsons – ranked #2 nationally and the runners-up in last year’s event – will take on the third-ranked team on Saturday in a rematch of last year’s semis, with Radio Tennis providing free live internet audio coverage of the match.
The second-seeded Thompsons faced a stiff test in the quarterfinals, beating an accomplished team from defending Stanford University. Alice Barnes was one-half of the team that won last spring’s NCAA doubles title, and her current teammate, Anne Yelsey, was on the duo that lost in an all-Cardinal final.
The doubles semis will take place on Saturday afternoon, following the singles semifinals, which begin at 10 a.m. (PDT). The Thompsons will take on Iva Gersic and Maja Kovacek from New Mexico. In last year’s semifinals, the Thompsons – then ranked seventh – prevailed in a tiebreaker against the 11th-ranked Lobos. The other semifinal features the top-ranked team in college tennis, Caroline Basu and Shadisha Robinson from Georgia, facing the surprising 41st-ranked duo of Lucia Sainz and Kathrin Winterhalter from Fresno State.
The Notre Dame twins improved to 9-4 in their careers in grand slam events. They are now 5-1 in the All-American Championships after Irish competitors had been just 2-5 in its doubles main draw prior to that.
Friday’s triumph guaranteed the Thompsons a berth in the next grand slam, the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, set for Nov. 3-6 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The sisters reached the semifinals of that event in `04, matching the best-ever finish by an ND duo.
Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships (October 7)Doubles - Main Draw[2] #2 Catrina Thompson/Christian Thompson (ND) d. #6 Alice Barnes/Anne Yelsey (Stanford) 9-7 - quarterfinals
Note: Numbers in brackets are seedings. Numbers preceding names are ITA national rankings.