The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

KERRIE Cartwright, playing in the first of three International Tennis Federation women’s circuit tournaments in Greece, has advanced to the quarter-final of singles in the 12th Lyttos Beach ITF Pro Circuit.

However, she was a little disappointed that she and American Kariann Piuerre-Louis didn’t survive the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles match against the top seeded team of Michaela Boev of Belgium and Raluca Georgiana Serban of Romania.

Cartwright and Pierre-Louis lost 7-6 (4), 2-6 (11-9).

“I’m very upset with the doubles, but very happy with my singles,” Cartwright told The Tribune following her double duties action yesterday.

“Singles was pretty good. I was a bit nervous at the beginning and the girl I played was pretty good and so all of the points were close.

“But towards the end, I pulled through and after winning the first set, that gave me more confidence going into the second set. I started playing better, going deep for my shots and I came up with the win.”

Playing directly out of the main draw, Cartwright won her second round singles match 6-4, 6-2 over Donnaroza Gouvernante of the Netherlands on Thursday.

She won her first round match on Monday with a 7-5, 6-4 upset decision over No.7 seed Anastasia Nefedova of the United States.

Cartwright, at 25 years of age and ranked at 1,002 in singles and 828 in doubles, is slated to be back in action today when she takes on No.4 seed Anastasia Detiuc of the Czech Republic.

“I’m looking forward to it. I feel very confident in my game and I’m happy with the way I’m playing,” she insisted.

“So I’m just going to keep focusing on every point, every game, every match and play my best and hopefully I can came out and win.”

As for their doubles, Cartwright said she and Pierre-Louis played a very close and tight match, but it was one that slipped away from them.

“There were a lot of bad line calls from the refs and a lot of miscommunications. We had quite a few problems,” Cartwright stressed.

“It was just really close through the entire time, but we had a set point in the first set and we killed it in the second set.

“We came back in the tie breaker and the ref made a bad call and it was out, but he didn’t want to come down and check the mark. We kept that momentum of coming back in the tie breaker and killed it going into the second set.

“In the tie breaker, it was really close the entire time and we just lost it. But overall, it was a very good match. It was just unfortunate that we didn’t come out with the win.”

While this is her third tournament for the year, Cartwright said right after this match she will play the second of her three tournaments in Greece next week.

But she just wants to get through this one before she looks ahead to the next tourney.