The Hawaii Open’s second- and third-seeded doubles teams needed to go the distance on Thursday to advance to today’s semifinal round at Patsy T. Mink Central Oahu Regional Park.
Second-seeded Asia Muhammad and Eri Hozumi edged Michaela Gordon and Claire Liu 6-4, 0-6, 10-7 and will face Na-Lee Han and Su Jeong Jang today at 6 p.m. Han and Jang beat Usue Maitane Arconada and Kaitlyn Christian 6-4, 6-3. Hozumi won last year’s doubles title with Miyu Kato with a victory over Muhammad and Nicole Gibbs in the final.
Third-seeded Lesley Kerkhove and Lidziya Marozava defeated Anastasia Pivovarova and Evgeniya Rodina 6-2, 3-6, 10-7. They will face Shu-Ying Hsieh and Su-Wei Hsieh, who knocked off top-seeded Xinyun Han and Makoto Ninomiya 6-0, 6-4.
After taking Thanksgiving off, the singles draw resumes today with the quarterfinal round starting at 10 a.m.
Chaminade women drop opener
Destiny Castro scored 14 points and Breann Nueku added 12, but it wasn’t enough to carry the Chaminade women’s basketball team on Thursday at the Oahu Thanksgiving Classic at St. Francis School Gym..
The Silverswords dropped their season opener to Minnesota State 82-62, a contest in which the Mavericks (1-4) led 19-2 just five minutes into the game. Taylor Drost had 14 points for Minnesota State.
SandBows set 2018 schedule
Hawaii’s beach volleyball schedule includes five weekends of home matches, highlighted by hosting the Big West Championship in late April.
The SandBows, who finished third in the NCAA tournament in May, open the season Feb. 24-25 against Stanford and UCLA in the Rainbow Wahine Classic at the Ching Complex.
UH also will host defending national champion USC in the Hawaii Invitational at Queen’s Beach, March 17-18, a field that includes Grand Canyon and Nebraska.
Other home events are the Queen’s Cup on April 7-8 with Washington, Loyola Marymount and Utah, and Senior Celebration on April 14-15 on campus with Arizona State and Boise State.
Hawaii travels for road matches at UCLA and Loyola Marymount (March 8); the East Meets West Invitational on March 10-11 in Manhattan Beach, Calif.; the Gamecock Challenge on March 24-25 at South Carolina; and the Big West Challenge on March 30-31, hosted by Sacramento State.
The two-time defending conference champions will host the Big West Championship for the first time at Queen’s Beach. The team championship will be played April 27-28, with the pairs championship April 29. The NCAA championship is May 4-6 at Gulf Shores, Ala.
