NOTRE DAME, Ind. -- Fourth-seeded Vanessa Webb of Duke and unseeded Ania Bleszynski of Stanford each won in straight sets to advance to the finals of the 1998 NCAA Women's Tennis singles championship at the Courtney Tennis Center on the campus of host University of Notre Dame. Florida's top-seeded and two-time defending NCAA doubles champion team of Dawn Buth and Stephanie Nickitas and California's unseeded team of Amanda Augustus and Amy Jensen advanced to the finals of the doubles championship.

Webb, who will be the first player from Duke to play in the NCAA final, trailed Stanford's Julie Scott 1-3 in the first set before winning 11 of the last 13 games for a 6-3, 6-2 win over Scott, who had eliminated Webb in a tight three-set match in 1997 NCAA quarterfinals. Bleszynski, looking to become the first unseeded player to win the NCAA women's singles title, won the final nine games of the match for a 6-3, 6-0 win over San Diego's unseeded Zuzana Lesenarova.

Webb and Bleszynski played twice before in their collegiate careers with each player earning a victory. Webb beat Bleszynski 6-4, 6-4 on Feb. 9, 1996, at the Rolex National Indoor Championships while Bleszynski won 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 on May 20, 1996, during the team portion of the NCAA Championship.

Buth and Nickitas won their 14th straight NCAA doubles match with their 6-2, 6-4 win over William & Mary's Lauren Nikolaus and Michelle O. The Gator duo, already the first female doubles tandem to win back-to-back crowns, will be looking for NCAA history in Friday's championship match as the first doubles team, male or female, to win three consecutive NCAA doubles titles.

Augustus and Jensen derailed Webb's bid to win both the singles and doubles championships with a 2-6, 6-0, 6-3 win over the second-seeded team of Webb and Karen Goldstein. The California duo are the first Golden Bear tennis players to earn a spot in an NCAA final and the first unseeded doubles team to reach the final since Mississippi's Marie-Laure Bougnoi and Pascale Piquemal in 1994.