WDSA John’s Island Open Update: Pierrepont/Krizek To Face Quick/Hewitt In Sunday Final by Rob Dinerman Dateline April 26th
--- Top-seeded defending champions Suzie Pierrepont and Narelle Krizek
will face their recent-years rivals Steph Hewitt and Meredeth Quick
Sunday morning in the final round of the second annual John’s Island
Open, sponsored by John’s Island Real Estate. Pierrepont and Krizek
defeated 2011 Los Angeles Open finalists Amanda Sobhy and Latasha Khan
15-14, 10 and 9 today in one semifinal, after which Hewitt and Quick,
the No. 1 WDSA team in 2012 now reunited after a hiatus caused by Quick
taking a leave to swell the population, took the measure of second
seeds Dana Betts and Tarsh McElhinny by a score of 15-7 12-15 15-10
15-9.
U.
S. Open champions Pierrepont and Krizek, straight-game winners over
Emily Lungstrum and Alex Clarke in their opening match, struggled
through a taut first game against Sobhy and Khan (three-love winners in
their qualifying match against 2014 U. S. National Doubles finalists
Kelsey Engman and Gina Stoker) until at 14-all, Pierrepont successfully
guided a backhand volley drop shot just above the tin for a clear
winner. Buoyed by this result, the top seeds cut out their tins and
increased the pressure on Khan in the final two games, extracting some
errors both from her and from her partner Sobhy, who may have felt that
she had to go for too much on the opportunities she had as Pierrepont
and Krizek moved efficiently along to their spot in the final.
The
bottom-half semi was more closely contested, with 2012 U. S. National
Doubles winners Hewitt and Quick racing through the first game, after
which a series of Betts reverse-corner winners and McElhinny forehand
kills along the right wall evened the match at a game apiece. In the
latter part of the third game, which featured numerous cross-court
exchanges between Quick and McElhinny, Hewitt and Quick gradually
gained an advantage, which they pressed all the way through the fourth
as well to set up what should be a highly engaging clash tomorrow
between the top two teams on the WDSA circuit.
