Tad Maclean and Finn Murgett continued their NCAA championship run with another three-set doubles victory in the quarterfinals Wednesday evening at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
The Tiger tandem, ranked No. 26 nationally, defeated No. 10 Riley Smith and Daniel Cuikerman of Southern California 7-6, 3-6, 1-0, posting their third consecutive win in the championships.
"It's just another great accomplishment for this pair, facing an opponent that had only lost two matches all year," Auburn head coach Bobby Reynolds said of the Tigers' highest-ranked victory this season. "Playing two out of three sets has many ups and down and the guys did a great job of weathering the storm when things weren't going their way, but also capitalizing when the opportunity presented itself.
"Doubles is so fast-paced, with many momentum swings and it's about when and what points that will ultimately determine the winner. Finn and Tad raised their tennis to another level in the third-set tiebreaker and never looked back."
After a seesaw opening set, the Auburn duo caught fire in the first-set tiebreaker, outscoring the Trojans 7-2 to take a 7-6 lead. In the second set, Smith and Cuikerman vaulted ahead 3-0 before Maclean and Murgett closed the gap to 3-2 and then 4-3 before USC took the set by a 6-3 score.
In the 10-point tiebreaker, the teams were knotted at 2-2, but from that point on, Maclean and Murgett were in control, winning the tiebreak set 10-3 and capturing the match.
Thursday in the NCAA semifinals, Murgett and Maclean will face No. 71-rated Guy Den Ouden and Adrian Oetzbach of Pepperdine. That match is set for 5 p.m. Central time. Live scoring of the NCAA championships is available via TennisTicker; fans can also watch all matches throughout the tournament by downloading the TennisOne app for free on mobile devices.
The duo of Maclean, a junior from Cornwall, England, and Murgett, a sophomore from Holmfirth, England, entered the NCAA championships having gone 11-10 this spring at No. 1 doubles, facing 11 ranked teams, and 16-13 for the year.
Maclean and Murgett have earned All-America status, the first Auburn players to do so since Andreas Mies and Alex Stamchev in doubles in 2012.
Wednesday, the final Oracle ITA team rankings were released and Auburn finished No. 47 nationally.