Amanda on the tour, 4 June 2002. Click to enlarge.
Amanda on the tour 10 July 2002. Click to enlarge.
2003
Pictures of Amanda and
Jennifer Embry in their
first round at Roland Garros in May 2003.
2002
Amanda and
Jennifer Embry win their
first round at Roland Garros in May 2002.
Click
to enlarge.
Amanda
Augustus, just after winning her first-round doubles match
with
Jennifer Embry at the 2002
US Open: Women's Doubles
against Amanda Coetzer and Lori McNeil.
2-6, 7-5, 6-4. Friday, 30 Aug 2002.
US Open Match Statistics,August 2002.
.
Flashback to 1998 at Notre Dame:
NCAA I Tournament
Nationally ranked No. 12 in 1998, CAL junior Amanda Augustus
and sophomore
Amy Jensen were unseeded in the
NCAA doubles tournament in May 1998 at Notre Dame.
First, they beat 8th-ranked (No. 5 seed) Nicola Kaiwai and Dorothee Durz
of Wake Forest, 6-2, 6-3 in the first round.
Then, they knocked off
4th-nationally ranked (and No. 3 seed),
Cristina Moros and Sandy Sureephong of Texas in a
thrilling 7-6, 4-6, 7-5 quarterfinal marathon.
Amy and Amanda were enjoying a Cinderella run.
How long could it last?
Amanda and Amy then ran up against the Nation's No. 2
doubles team from Duke,
Vanessa
Webb and Karen
Goldstein
in the NCAA doubles semifinals. No one knew that Webb was destined to win the
NCAA Singles Championship this year.
1998 NCAA Doubles Semifinals.
The Amazing Amanda and Amy won 2-6, 6-0, 6-3.
1998 NCAA doubles semifinals.
Jan
Brogan describing a game plan with Amanda and Amy during the semifinal
match.
After that semifinal match against Webb and Goldstein, Amanda was quoted as saying,
"I think that we played really well. We started
off a little slow but when you play different teams, it takes
a while to figure out what works against them and what doesn't.
In the second set, we mixed it up a bit and went back to our original
game-plan. We didn't expect the second set to go like it did. We just
wanted to keep it close and hold serve and hopefully break them. Once
we got it going, we knew that if we just fought hard, things
would probably go our way."
1998 NCAA doubles finals.
CAL jumped out to a 4-1 lead, but Florida came back to lead, 5-4,
and Florida was serving. The Cinderella run was ending.
1998 NCAA Championship Doubles Finals
Jan
Brogan kneeling at the right bench during a changeover, strategizing
with Amanda and Amy. Also seen is
Florida coach
Andy Brandi
(left).
1998 NCAA Double Championship.
Amy and Amanda appealing the line call
during the NCAA championship
match in 1998.
Florida was serving for the first set, but Amanda and Amy
broke them, and went on to win the first set 7-5!
1998 NCAA Doublel Championship.
Amy and Amanda receiving serve in 1998 Double Championship.
The Bears then abruptly took the second set, 6-3,
to win the 1998 championship, an historic moment in NCAA tennis.
With this victory (7-5, 6-3), Amanda and Amy
had become the first unseeded team ever
to win the NCAA women's doubles
title in the tournament's 17-year history.
Afterward Amanda said,
"The main factor was that we
focused on our own game and not on who we
were playing. We tried to focus on the things we
wanted to do in the match in order to play our style of doubles.
We didn't want to think too much about what they were doing."
Amanda and Amy finished their season with a 28-7 mark, including an amazing
five-match run to the title which included two
three-set matches and five sets won by one or two games.
Amy and Amanda and proud coaches receiving trophies
at the 1998 NCAA Division 1 Women's Tennis
Championship finals. Seen in the photo is (from left): associate
coach Kathy Toon, junior Amanda Augustus, head coach Jan
Brogan and
sophomore Amy Jensen. Augustus and Jensen's 7-5, 6-3 win over Florida's
#1-seeded team gives CAL its first tennis title in singles or doubles.
Amy and Amanda were given an automatic berth in the US Open Doubles,
and were slated to play Mary Joe Fernandez and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.
Now flash forward to 1999
CAL's defending NCAA tennis doubles champs Amanda Augustus and Amy Jensen
led the CAL Bears in 1999. In addition, they had captured two tournaments
the previous fall -- the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northwest
Regional
and the National Collegiate Tennis Classic.
Was their NCAA championship in 1998 a fluke?
Gainseville Florida, May 1999:
NCAA I Women's Tennis Championship.
Amy (at baseline) and Amanda (at net) in 1999 are hoping to defend their
improbable 1998 NCAA championship.
In May 1999, at the NCAA Doubles Championship in Gainesville, Florida,
Amy and Amanda hoped to defend their championship.
This time, Amanda and Amy were 3rd-seeded.
Nonetheless, they defeated the
top-ranked duo of Vanessa Castellano and Marissa Catlin from Georgia,
4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
May 1999, NCAA Tennis Championship.
The championship rendered Amanda and Amy only the second doubles
team to repeat as NCAA champions, following
Florida's Dawn Buth and Stephanie Nickitas, who
won back-to-back titles in 1996 and '97.
May 1999, NCAA Tennis Championship.
Of course in 1998, Amanda and Amy had already made history
as the first unseeded tandem to ever win an NCAA doubles title.
This championship gave them another automatic berth
into the main draw of the U.S. Open.
They were slated to meet Hrdlickova and Rittner.
Amanda completed her senior season in 1999 as a
four-time All-American and three-time first
team All-Pac-10 pick.
Amanda in shades. May 1999.
Amy Jensen, twice named an All-American, returned for her
final campaign in 2000. What she did that season with
Claire Curran ...
is another story.
2007 July: Amanda Augustus is named Head Coach of CAL Women's Tennis.
