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UNLV's Malec Advances to Semifinals of NCAA Women's Tennis Championship
Unseeded senior to take on number one seed in the nation.
May 25, 2000
MALIBU, Calif. -- UNLV senior Katarina Malec won 11 of the last 12 games en route to taking her third consecutive three-set match Wednesday and earned a spot in the semifinals of the NCAA Women's Tennis Championships at Pepperdine University. Malec, unseeded and ranked 29th, played her second match of the day and rallied to down 11th-ranked Bruno Colosio of LSU in the quarterfinals, 2-6, 6-2, 6-0. Malec, who moved to 38-5, won her 19th-straight singles match and improved her record this season vs. ranked opponents to 17-2. Malec jumped out to a 2-0 lead but lost six straight games and the first set. After being tied 1-1 in the second set, the Lady Rebel entry went up 4-1, lost the next game but then took the final eight to close the match. "I was unbelievably tired and she made me run a lot in the first set," Malec said. "In the second set I saw that she was tired too so I changed my style to play longer points. I went point by point and I knew that I had to show her that I was not going to miss any easy shots. I was concentrating in the final set. I wanted to get it over with as quickly as I could before I started to cramp up." Malec has now gone deeper into the NCAA tournament than any UNLV woman in history. "It has been a tremendous day," UNLV Head Coach Kevin Cory said. "Katarina fought so hard and really showed a lot of class and heart. She was very tired after the first match of the day and to come back and beat Colosio so soundly in the final two sets is remarkable. She has worked extremely hard leading up to this tournament and she is in as good as shape as anyone here." Malec will play top-seeded Marissa Irvin of Stanford at noon Thursday in one semifinal. Irvin, a sophomore from nearby Santa Monica, Calif., is currently ranked 82nd in the world rankings. The two already played once this season on February 25 in Palo Alto, Calif., when Irvin took a 6-4, 6-1 decision. That match also was the last time Malec lost in singles play. The other semifinal will feature Stanford's Laura Granville, seeded 9-16, vs. fifth-seeded Aarthi Venkatesan of Georgia. "Irvin presents a tremendous challenge, but you never know," Cory said. "There is no question that all the pressure is on Irvin because she is the game's top-ranked player. Every since Katarina got past the second round and made All-American, she has loosened up and really enjoyed the experience here. She is really taking in the moment." Malec said she has overcome the fatigue of four matches in three days with the help of the emotions that come from winning. "I'm in shock right now," she said. "I am so tired but to get to the semifinals of such an important tournament is just a great feeling." Malec, unseeded and ranked 29th, became the first UNLV woman to advance this deep into the national tournament while breaking the school record for victories in a season by improving to 38-5 ? one win better than Marianne Vallin in 1994. After rain delayed the start of the match for two hours, Malec broke Bradshaw's service game to take a 4-3 lead. Malec then twice faced game point to go up 5-3 but instead allowed Bradshaw to come back for a 7-5 first-set victory. Malec, however, regained her focus and quickly took the next set 6-1. The native of Warsaw, Poland, continued to frustrate her opponent and jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the deciding set. Bradshaw pulled within one game and had ad-in when Malec rallied to win the game and close the set out in a 5-7, 6-1, 6-3 victory. "I didn't take chances in the first set and I played defensively," Malec said. "I was mad at myself for not winning the set and told myself that 'this is it, my last chance.' I wanted to know that even if I lost, I had given everything I could, so I became aggressive. She became frustrated when she saw that I was not going to give up and go away." UNLV Head Coach Kevin Cory agreed that Bradshaw initially had Malec on the defensive. "Allison played big tennis in the first set, taking the ball early and hitting corner to corner," Cory said. "The difference came when Katarina began to play the ball deep and to Allison's backhand, which disrupted (Bradshaw's) rhythm. When Allison is on, she is the type of player who can beat anyone in the country. But if you get her out of her gameplan, she can be beaten." Although Malec said she was cramping late in the final set, Cory said his player's conditioning once again played a big part in winning a three-set match.
"I knew going into the final set that Katarina had the advantage because of her
conditioning and her heart," he said. "She has proved that she can beat anyone
in the country in a three-set match."
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