Florida Gators
NCAA Singles Semifinals
Jennifer Magley Has NCAA Singles Run End in Semifinals
Friday, May 27, 2005 | Women's Tennis
The University of Florida's Jennifer Magley (Bradenton, Fla.) had her NCAA Singles Championship run end Friday afternoon with a 7-5, 6-4 loss in the semifinals to Baylor's Zuzana Zemenova at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex.
Magley ends the season with a 25-9 singles record, 95-23 in her three-year career. Her semifinal appearance was the 12th time a Gator had reached that stage of the national event.
"My shoulder was bothering me a little more today on the serve, it was a little more painful, but that's not the reason I lost," shared Magley, who served 11 of her 75 double-faults this tournament during the semifinal match. "The difference (between today and last Thursday's meeting in the NCAA team round of 16) was that she was a little more prepared with her strategy. Her strokes were really working and she made more shots today that the last time we played. Any time I hit a short ball in the court, she just came in and punished it. She played really aggressive and played really well today."
Friday's loss lasted 2 hours and 2 minutes, extending Magley's court time during the five consecutive days of singles play to 13 hours and 27 minutes.
"I don't feel like I was tired or out of shape, it was just that I was out of position on a lot of the points," Magley said. "She played from the first shot so I felt like I was out of position from the beginning and that was harder because even the high balls I would hit, she would wait for them to come down."
Magley held serve just four times during the match, as Zemenova capitalized on seven-of-12 break point opportunities, compared with Magley's five-of-seven effort.
The first three games of the match were breaks before Zemenova held at love and Magley followed by holding, as well, before breaking Zemenova at love to even the set at 3-all. But Magley fell behind 0-40 on her serve and the Baylor rookie capitalized by earning her third break and held to take a 5-3 lead. Magley then held and rallied to break Zemenova to extend the set. But Zemenova came right back with a break of her own and served out at love to take the first set, 7-5.
She carried that momentum in the second set, breaking Magley at love. But the Gator junior dug deep and broke right back at love, as neither could hold serve for the first five games of the set. Zemenova finally broke that trend to take a 4-2 lead. Magley held her final two serves, but couldn't manage a to break Zemenova again, who served out for the match.
"It was clear that (Zemenova's) cross-court forehand really hurt us," UF head coach Roland Thornqvist said. "It was the best forehand cross-court we've seen. Jen likes to play out of the left side and every time we went to her forehand she hit it mock-nine back. It was tough to do anything with her ball. Zemenova is deceptive on defense, she gives up a lot of court. She started playing better at the end, too. Her balls were two or three feet from the baseline every single time and it was tough for us to move the ball around. You have to give her a lot of credit, she certainly played well."
NCAA Women's Tennis Singles Championships
Dan Magill Tennis Complex
Athens, Ga.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Singles Semifinal
Zuzana Zemenova, Baylor, def. Jennifer Magley(5), Florida, 7-5, 6-4
Audra COHEN(3), Northwestern, def. Riza Zalameda, UCLA, 6-4, 6-4
END OF REPORT
