Yelsey qualifies for the U.S. Open doubles draw

Patrick Laverty

Two months after graduating from Corona del Mar High, Anne Yelsey has

qualified for the U.S. Open doubles competition.

Bound for Stanford in September, Yelsey will first take a trip to

New York with her doubles partner Riza Zalameda of Los Angeles. They

received a wild-card entry into the U.S. Open by winning the girls

18s Super National Hard Courts championships in San Jose on Saturday.

It was the fifth national title for Yelsey and Zalameda in three

years of playing together.

In addition to the main draw of the doubles competition, Yelsey

and Zalameda will also compete in the singles and doubles in the U.S.

Junior Open, which takes place during the second week of the U.S.

Open.

But the real prize is competing in the main draw. Yelsey’s

opponent is yet to be determined, but she can breath a sigh of relief

that it won’t be Serena and Venus Williams, since Serena has pulled

out of the tournament because of injury.

“Hopefully we get a good first round draw for us,” Yelsey said.

“We haven’t played anything of such importance before.”

Yelsey and Zalameda won six matches in San Jose to capture their

latest title. They lost just one set overall, a 6-1 defeat in the

second set of the third round, but bounced back with a 6-1 victory in

the third set of that match.

Yelsey and Zalameda then defeated Preethis Mukundan of Folsom and

Monica Wiesener of Calabasas, 6-3, 6-4, in the quarterfinals. In the

semifinals, the eventual champions came up with a 6-1, 6-4 victory

over Catrina and Christian Thompson of Las Vegas.

The finals were a clash of styles against Lindsey Nelson of Orange

and Jessica Nguyen of Chatsworth.

“My doubles partner and I, we love to volley,” Yelsey said. “The

girls we were playing were ground strokers. My coach always says, two

volleyers will always beat two ground strokers.”

But it was tight in the first set and Yelsey and Zalameda actually

trailed 5-3 before sending it to a tiebreaker.

“We just played solidly,” Yelsey said. “We were down 5-3, but just

down one break. We held service and then broke to make it 5-5. We

played a really solid game.”

Yelsey and Zalameda won the tiebreaker, 7-5, then took a big lead

in the second set.

But the duo had a hard time closing out their opponents. With a

5-2 lead in the set and Yelsey serving, it took eight match points to

close out the championship.

“Closing out something this big, that has so many rewards, is

going to be a lot of pressure,” Yelsey said. “After missing seven

match points our goal was just to keep it in.”

Yelsey did just that with a deep volley and her opponents returned

it into the net to give Yelsey and Zalameda the title and entrance

into one of the four grand slam tournaments.

The U.S. open begins Aug. 25 and runs until Sept. 7. Yelsey will

not begin classes at Stanford until Sept. 17. But even if classes

started earlier, it wouldn’t have caused much of a conflict.

“I wouldn’t have let it conflict,” Yelsey said. “I’d be in New

York.”