STANFORD, Calif. – Klara Fabikova keeps getting into finals.
An NCAA doubles finalist and regional doubles champion last season, the California senior is looking to win her second straight USTA/ITA Northwest Regional Championship in 2015 but this time with freshman teammate Olivia Hauger. The Golden Bears beat Stanford senior Krista Hardebeck and freshman Caroline Lampl, 3-6, 6-2, 1-0(7), in the main draw doubles semifinals to advance to the championship match of the USTA/ITA Northwest Regional Championships.
The third-seeded Bears will battle another Cardinal duo – top-seeded juniors Taylor Davidson and Caroline Doyle – on Tuesday at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium.
“They did a really good job,” Cal head coach Amanda Augustus said. “The match was kind of back and forth in the first set. Stanford was competing hard and hitting hard from the baseline. We looked for opportunities to be aggressive. We got broken at 3-all in the first set. We did good a job making a few adjustments and starting the second set quickly. They started off really well in the 10-point tiebreaker, but we fought back point by point. We were down about 6-4 in the tiebreaker, but we got on a roll after that.”
The final will take place not before noon on Monday, after the end of the main draw singles final. The winner claims a spot in the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, which runs Nov. 12-15 in Flushing Meadows, New York.
Fabikova has played on the last day of several tournaments before, including in last year's regional doubles final, in which Fabikova and Zsofi Susanyi – Cal's current undergraduate assistant coach – defeated teammates Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr, 6-1, 6-4, for the trip to New York. More recently Fabikova won the consolation singles title at this season's Oracle/ITA Masters and lost the top-flight singles final to Manasse at the Cal Nike Fall Invitational. Last spring at NCAAs, she paired with the veteran Susanyi, whose last college match was the national championship. Fabikova also reached the Pac-12 singles final last spring.
It's the second college final for Hauger, who has played in just 20 college matches (10 singles and 10 doubles) in her young career. Before teaming up with Fabikova, Hauger played six doubles matches with sophomore Lyann Hoang, with the young Bears winning the Gold Doubles Title on Oct. 4 at the Cal Nike Fall Invitational.
“Match by match she's getting better,” Augustus said. “There were a senior and a freshman on both sides of the court. A lot of it is getting comfortable on how many adjustments you have to make in a match, and Klara is very familiar with that. They communicate very well, and they're able to do that [make adjustments] very well.”
Teams use the fall in part to figure out who will play on which court in singles and doubles in spring dual matches. Figuring out who should play with whom in doubles is a big part of that. Hauger and Fabikova haven't played together as much as teammates and doubles All-Americans Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr have or as much as Fabikova and Susanyi did.
But the regional finalists' success can't be denied.
“Making a regional final is great, and we'll see how tomorrow goes,” Augustus said. “For the spring, we're looking for the three best doubles teams. Maegan and Denise are established, but so far so good on the potential pairing of Klara and Olivia for the spring.”
Cal Result at the USTA/ITA Northwest Regional Championships
Oct. 26, 2015, in Stanford, Calif.
Taube Family Tennis Stadium
Doubles Main Draw – Semifinal Round
[3] Klara Fabikova/Olivia Hauger (Cal) def. Krista Hardebeck/Caroline Lampl (Stanford) – 3-6, 6-2, 1-0(7)
