SAN DIEGO — Emilee Astle and Bobo Huang were defeated in the Round of 32 at the ITA National Fall Championships. Michigan's Jaedan Brown and Kari Miller beat Astle and Huang 3-6, 7-6 (4), 10-3 at the Barnes Tennis Center on Wednesday evening.
"Tough match. Bobo and Emilee fought hard and I’m proud of how well they competed with a solid team. Just a few points made the difference," assistant coach Gabby Curtis said. "We’ll learn from this one and we’re excited for another match today!"
Astle and Huang won the first set before the second set went to a tiebreaker with the Wolverines winning, and the third set went to a ten-point tiebreaker with Michigan coming out on top.
This has been an experience that Astle and Huang will never forget. "Even though we lost, I was proud of the way we played. The level was really high and we definitely had our opportunities to win the match," said Astle. "We will take this match as an opportunity to learn and we’re excited to play again tonight!"
It was the first time since 2006 that BYU had anyone represented in the tournament, and it took until Astle and Huang's eighth doubles match together this fall to lose their first match together.
Losing in any kind of tournament is difficult, but the experience from playing will only benefit the duo moving forward. "Overall I thought we did great. We fought hard, it was not easy to lose a close match like that," said Huang. "I thought we did a great job on executing our game plan, our energy was great and we're gonna come back stronger.
The duo will continue to compete in the back draw through the weekend.