CLAREMONT, Calif.-- Babson College senior
Olivia Soffer (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and junior
Matia Cristiani (San Salvador, El Salvador) won eight consecutive games spanning the first and second sets on the way to defeating senior Alisha Chulani (Los Altos, Calif.) and first-year Rebecca Kong (San Diego, Calif.) of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 6-3, 6-2 in the NCAA Doubles Championship semifinals on Monday afternoon at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.
With their 16th straight victory, the third-seeded Soffer and Cristiani advanced to the national final for the third year in a row. They are the first players to reach the title match in three consecutive seasons in more than a decade and are looking to become the first doubles pairing to repeat as national champions since 2016 on Tuesday.
The Beavers' duo held serve to win the opening game but quickly fell behind 3-1 as Chulani and Kong both held serve around a break. Soffer won her service game to cut the deficit to 3-2, the Green and White followed with its first break of the match and then won the final three games to close out a 6-3 first-set win.
Soffer and Cristiani kept the momentum going and broke the Athenas twice to build a 3-0 lead early in the second. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps answered back with a break and got as close as 3-2 before the Beavers' duo regained control.
Soffer held serve to make it 4-2 and following another break, Cristiani won her service game to close out the match.
Soffer and Cristiani will meet the top-seeded pairing of seniors Nina Farhat (Southborough, Mass.) and Sahana Raman (Acton, Mass.) of Middlebury College in Tuesday's 3 p.m. national title match. Farhat and Raman handed Soffer and Cristiani their last defeat back on March 19.
TOURNAMENT NOTES
• Soffer and Cristiani are now 25-2 this season and 80-8 in doubles over the last three seasons, which includes a 10-1 mark in the NCAA Championship.
• Eight of Soffer and Cristiani's 10 victories in NCAA doubles play over the last three years have come in straight sets.
• Soffer and Cristiani are the first players to reach three straight doubles finals since Gabby Devlin of Amherst, who played in four straight from 2011-14 including three times with Jordan Brewer.
• Soffer and Cristiani are the third duo over the last decade to reach back-to-back finals after Jullie Raventos and Linda Shin of Williams won in both 2015 and 2016, and Eudice Chong and Victoria Yu of Wesleyan finished as the 2018 runner-up after winning it all in 2017.
