University of Georgia Athletics
Frazier Advances To NCAA Singles Quarterfinals
May 25, 2007 | Women's Tennis
ATHENS, Ga. --- Georgia women’s tennis senior Natalie Frazier advanced to the NCAA Singles Quarterfinals with a dramatic three-set win over Stanford’s Theresa Logar, 6-0, 5-7, 7-6(6) on Friday at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex, and she will play second-seeded Megan Falcon of LSU on Saturday for a spot in the semifinals.
Despite dominating the match early, Frazier let Logar back in and even had to fight off several match points to extend her Georgia career.
“Growing up my coaches always told me to fight and never give up,” Frazier said. “There's an actual sign at the tennis center I played at that says 'It's not over until you win.' That's always been my motto, to just keep fighting. If you're down 6-love, 5-love or 40-love, you have to just keep fighting. It's been my backbone ever since I was 7."
Frazier cruised past the Stanford senior, who is ranked eighth in the country and seeded as a No. 9-16 in this tournament, 6-0 in the first set. She took a 4-0 lead in the second and looked to be in control of the match.
But Logar fought back, tied it up at 4-all and then took a 5-4 lead. The Georgia senior from Riverdale, Ga., managed one more game in that set, but Logar took the following two to force a third set.
Logar came out and took an early 2-0 lead in the third set and then went up 3-1. Frazier tied it back up at 3-all, but the next two games went to the Cardinal netter. But Frazier wasn’t letting her career end there, fighting off three match points en route to taking the next three games and a 6-5 advantage.
Stanford’s No. 1 held on to force a tiebreaker. Frazier took the early lead in the breaker, but the netters eventually were knotted at 6-all. It was then the Georgia senior closed things out.
After Frazier took the seventh point, Logar hit what looked like would be an overhead winner to even things back up. But Frazier found a way to get a piece of her racquet on the ball, and it slowly sailed over Logar’s head and landed just inside the back line for match point.
Frazier advances to the quarterfinals for the first time in her career. She had dropped Round of 64 contests in both her sophomore and junior years prior to this tournament. She is set for a contest with the No. 2 seed of the tournament Megan Falcon of LSU. Falcon still is yet to lose a dual match this season.
Frazier and Falcon faced each other in the regular season, with the LSU sophomore taking a three-set super-tiebreaker victory, 6-0, 6-7, 1-0.
Frazier’s win Friday also moved her up closer to claiming spots in the Georgia record books as well. She now is just one win shy of tying for 10th in career singles victories and also one away from tying for fifth in most combined singles and doubles wins in a career.
