The top half semifinal of the 2008 NCAA Doubles Championships has been determined as Brittany Berckes and Alicia Menezes of Amherst and Sabra Rogers and Tshema Nash of Emory advanced to the next round. Berckes and Menezes defeated Becky Morse-Karzen and Natalia Fugate of the University of Mary Washington 6-0, 7-5. Rogers and Nash defeated Erin Andrade and Kayla Smith of DePauw 6-0, 6-3.
Berckes and Menezes won the first set 6-0 with long service games, including the sixth game that went four deuces before the game was won. Berckes and Menezes built a 3-1 lead to start the second set, but Morse-Karzen and Fugate never gave up as they tied the set at 5-5. However, Berckes and Menezes won the next two games to win the set 7-5, and advance to the semifinal. The third-seeded Berckes and Menezes are the defending national champions.
In another quarterfinal match, Rogers and Nash continued to play well as they won the first set 6-0 in 24 minutes. The Emory tandem took the first three games of the second set before Andrade and Smith got on the board to bring the score to 3-1. Andrade and Smith continued to fight for the match as they cut the margin to 5-3, but were unable to stop an Emory team that knocked off the top-seeded doubles pair one day earlier. Rogers and Nash sealed the set in the next game at 6-3.
The doubles semifinals have been moved to noon CDT on Sunday with the finals to be webstreamed at 2 p.m. CDT.