April 25, 2023
Two former NCAA tennis singles champions squared off in the finals of the ITF W100 Charleston tournament on Sunday in Mount Pleasant.
Charleston’s Emma Navarro, the 2021 NCAA champ at Virginia, won on her homecourt by defeating Peyton Stearns – last year’s NCAA winner with Texas – in three sets at LTP Mount Pleasant. Navarro, 21 and now ranked a career-best No. 101 on the WTA Tour, won by 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 in a match that lasted more than two hours.
It was Navarro’s third final on the ITF World Tennis Tour this year, and her second victory.
“It’s a great feeling to win at home,” Navarro said. “I’m just so grateful and honored to play at home. I feel the support from the people watching and the club in general, and my team and my family. It’s a really special feeling playing at home.”
Navarro had a chance to close out the match when she led by 5-3 in the third set, but Stearns battled back to even the score at 5-5.
“Definitely some nerves there,” Navarro said. “Whenever you have a lead and a chance to close out a match, it’s easy to let your mind wander to a place where it shouldn’t be.”
But Navarro took over from there, breaking Stearns at love for 6-5 and then serving out the match.
“After I lost the lead, it was exactly what I didn’t want to happen, but I was still here and still playing,” she said. “I felt a little bit more comfortable going into the next two games.”
Navarro said she will either head next to Charlottesville for another ITF tournament, or to Europe for the red-clay season.
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