Gurney Plays Florida’s Raymond for NCAA Women’s Championship

Cinda Gurney reached the final of the NCAA women’s tennis championships with a 7-6 (14-12), 6-2 semifinal victory over Andrea Farley of Florida on Wednesday in Gainesville, Fla.

Gurney, a North Carolina senior from Palos Verdes, had four set points against her before taking the tiebreaker.

“(Farley) seemed pretty dejected after that first set,” Gurney said. “Once I had it under my belt I felt like the pressure was off, and I was able to just hit out on every point.”

Gurney will face top-seeded Lisa Raymond of Florida in today’s final. The defending champion, Raymond improved to 33-0 for the season and won her 43rd consecutive collegiate singles match with a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Kelly Pace of Texas.

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Wayne Black, David Ekerot and Brian MacPhie of team champion USC and Sebastien LeBlanc, Robert Janecek and Davide Sanguinetti of UCLA were among the first-round singles winners as individual men’s NCAA championship play began in Athens, Ga.

Sanguinetti beat Duke’s Davis Hall, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, after suffering a collision with Arizona’s Bruce Haddad, who was playing another opponent on an adjacent court and had to default.

Jon Leach of USC lost his first-round match to Mark Weaver of Texas A&M;, 7-5, 6-3. Charles Auffray, Pepperdine’s lone singles entrant, was eliminated by Andrew Rueb of Harvard, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.