Championship Photo Gallery

NOTRE DAME, Ind. -- Fourth-seeded Vanessa Webb of Duke captured the 1998 NCAA women's tennis singles crown with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Stanford's unseeded Ania Bleszynski at the Courtney Tennis Center on the campus of host University of Notre Dame. Webb becomes the first woman to win an NCAA championship in Duke history and is the first non Pacific-10 or Southeastern Conference player to win the NCAA women's singles title since its inception in 1982. California's doubles team of Amanda Augustus and Amy Jensen became the first unseeded players to win an NCAA women's tennis title with a 7-5, 6-3 upset of Florida's top-seeded and two-time defending NCAA champion team of Dawn Buth and Stephanie Nickitas.

Webb, a junior from Toronto, combined a strong net game and quick feet to repeatedly chase down the powerful groundstrokes of Bleszynski, forcing the senior from Thousand Oaks, Calif., into costly unforced errors. Bleszynski rallied from a break of serve down in the second set but the lefthanded Webb held serve for 5-4 and broke Bleszynski to claim the title and the wild card into the U.S. Open women's singles championships that is awarded to the NCAA champion.

Augustus and Jensen blew a 4-1, first-set lead but broke serve as Florida served for the first set at 5-4. The Golden Bear pair then held serve and broke the Gators again at 6-5 to claim the first set 7-5. Augustus, a junior from Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., and Jensen, a sophomore from Brisbane, Australia, went up 5-1 in the second set but Buth and Nickitas saved two match points at 5-1 and broke serve for 5-2. After Florida held serve for 5-3, Jensen held serve, winning on the third match point for a 7-5, 6-3 win.

Buth, a senior from Wichita, Kan., and Nickitas, a junior from Tampa, Fla., were 15-0 in NCAA championship doubles matches entering the match and were attempting to become the first three-time doubles champions - male or female - in the history of the NCAA tennis championships. Augustus and Jensen, the first tennis players from California to win an NCAA title in either singles or doubles at that school, also will receive a wild card into the U.S. Open women's doubles championships.

The singles and doubles championships conclude the nine-day NCAA women's tennis championship at Notre Dame. Florida claimed its third NCAA team championship during the team portion of the championship.