Stanford earns two more national titles
Associated Press
ATHENS, Ga. — The tennis trophy room at Stanford University, already crowded with the hardware from dozens of champions, will have to make room for more.
Bradley Klahn of the Cardinal won the NCAA men's singles title yesterday at the University of Georgia, and his teammates, Hilary Barte and Lindsay Burdette, won the women's doubles crown.
"This feels incredible," said Klahn, who defeated unseeded Austen Childs of Louisville 6-1, 6-2. "All the people who have won it I was trying to block that out."
Klahn became the 14th Cardinal to claim the men's singles title, the first since Alex Kim in 2000.
"The wins speak for themselves," said Burdette of Stanford's status in college tennis. "This feels great, but it reminds us of how hard all those teams that dominated had to work."
Burdette and Barte defeated Tennessee's top-seeded Natalie Ploskova and Caitlin Whoriskey 7-5, 4-6, 6-0 to become the sixth Stanford duo to win the women's doubles.
Included among those winners was Lindsay's older sister. Erin, who teamed with Alice Barnes to win the 2005 title, also in Athens, 90 minutes northeast of the Burdette's hometown of Jackson, Ga.
Stanford also won the women's team title last week.
The hometown crowd was delighted by Chelsea Gullickson's championship in the singles final. Gullickson beat second-seeded Jana Juricova 6-3, 7-6 (7) to become the third women's champ from Georgia.
"I struggled a lot this year," said Gullickson, who finished the year 30-8. "I had my ups and downs, but I pulled it out in the end. The crowd was awesome, I just pushed my nerves aside."
Gullickson said she has given no thought to joining her older sister, Carly, on the professional circuit. Both she and Klahn were hopeful of wildcard draws into the U.S. Open.
Virginia's unseeded Drew Courtney and Michael Shabaz won the men's doubles title with a 6-7 (4), 6-2, 6-3 over Tennessee's No. 2 seeds Davy Sandgren and John-Patrick Smith. It was the second straight doubles title for Shabaz, who teamed with Dominic Inglot last year.