Klahn, Barte playing for NCAA singles titles

With the NCAA team tournaments now concluded, the top players on both the Stanford men’s and women’s tennis teams turned their eyes toward the individual competition at the NCAA Championships. On the men’s side, sophomore Bradley Klahn was the only player to enter the tournament, while junior Hilary Barte and freshman Mallory Burdette both entered the women’s draw.

Klahn, who entered the tournament as one of its top 16 seeds, breezed past his competition in the first round, defeating Artem Baradach of SMU 6-3, 6-2.

Klahn’s second round opponent, Boris Conkic of Tennessee, proved to be a tougher challenge. Though Conkic took the first set from Klahn, the sophomore bounced back to win the next two sets and the match with a final score of 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

The next match for Klahn will be today at 8:30 a.m. PST, when he takes on fourth-seeded Guillermo Gomez of Georgia Tech. Gomez has not had an easy road to the round of 16<\p>–<\p>he had to grind out a three-set victory over his first-round opponent, Moritz Baumann of Wisconsin, before needing a tiebreaker victory in the second round to advance.

On the women’s side, Barte has had an easy road into the quarterfinals. Seeded fourth, Barte took out her opening round foe, Michaela Kissell of Marshall, 6-3, 6-1.

Second round opponent Ute Schnoy of Denver proved to be even less of a challenge, falling to Barte 6-1, 6-2.

Barte will play again today at 7 a.m. PST, when she takes on Kristi Boxx of Ole Miss. The unseeded Boxx advanced to the round of 16 with wins over Martina Pavelec of Wake Forest and Kristy Frilling of Notre Dame.

Meanwhile, Burdette could not match the success of Barte and Klahn. Burdette, who was unseeded, advanced past Alexa Guarachi of Alabama 6-1, 6-3 before falling in the second round to eighth-seeded Laura Vallverdu of Miami.

In addition to the singles draw, the Cardinal has one team entered in each doubles draw.

On the men’s side, Klahn and sophomore Ryan Thacher enter the tournament as the fourth seed. In their first round match against Tennessee’s Conkic and Rhyne Williams, the duo delivered an emphatic 6-2, 6-2 victory. Klahn and Thacher will now face Jason Jung and Evan King of Michigan, who needed to win two tiebreakers in their first round match to advance to the round of 16. Their match will take place at 1 p.m. PST today.

The sole women’s duo, Barte and senior Lindsay Burdette, are seeded second in the draw. One of the top teams in the nation all season, the duo took an easy first-round win over Irina Falconi and Sasha Krupina of Georgia Tech. Barte and Burdette swept the match 6-4, 6-2.

The next match for the team is today at 12 p.m. PST against Guarachi and Courtney McLane of Alabama. That unseeded team advanced with a victory over Lauren Megale and Pichittra Thongdach of Boise State, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1.

All the matches will be held in Athens, Ga., the host of both the NCAA individual and team tournaments.