ATHENS, Ga. – For the second straight year, Maegan Manasse faced Florida's Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan deep in the NCAA Doubles Championship. But on Saturday, she met them in a different round, she had a different partner, and the match had a different outcome.
 
The 34th-ranked Manasse and Maya Jansen knocked off the defending champions, 7-6(3), 6-2, at the University of Georgia's Dan Magill Tennis Complex to advance to Sunday's semifinals.
 
"We just played very smart," Jansen said. "In the first set we made a lot of little adjustments, and we volleyed well and served and returned well."
 
Last season, the two Gators beat Manasse and Denise Starr twice – in the NCAA final and in a regular-season match in Berkeley. The Florida pair also lost to Cal's Zsofi Susanyi and Klara Fabikova in the 2015 NCAA doubles semifinals. This year, the 20th-ranked Keegan and Austin aren't even the top-ranked doubles team at Florida, with the 11th-ranked Ingrid Neel and Anna Danilina taking that honor.
 
But you can't discount the defending champs, who earlier this week contributed to Florida's NCAA team title.
 
"We've seen that team a lot," Cal head coach Amanda Augustus said, "and we know they're tough opponents. They're very experienced, they know they know how to play and know how to win. We knew we had to be aggressive and take chances when we got them. We executed our strategy and played nice and aggressive today. Maya and Maegan are comfortable playing with each other and are very experienced as well."
 
Manasse and Jansen – a two-time NCAA doubles champ at Alabama – will take that experience into Sunday's semifinals, in which the Bears will play Ohio State's 18th-ranked Francesca Di Lorenzo and Miho Kowase at a time TBA.
 
NCAA Division I Women's Tennis Doubles Championship
May 27, 2017, in Athens, Ga.
Dan Magill Tennis Complex
 
Quarterfinal Round
No. 34 Maya Jansen/Maegan Manasse (Cal) def. No. 20 Brooke Austin/Kourtney Keegan (Florida), 7-6(3), 6-2