Aug. 18, 2004
EVANSTON, Ill. - Incoming freshman tennis player Audra Cohen recently captured a national title before ever even stepping on the court to compete for the Wildcats. She won the USTA Doubles National Championship for juniors alongside partner Riza Zalameda.
Despite being from opposite sides of the country (Cohen hails from Plantation, Fla., while Zalameda is from Los Angeles, Calif.), the duo played together as if they grew up next door to one another. They started the tournament with a lofty No. 2 overall seeding and certainly lived up to the high seed by breezing through much of the field in straight sets. Cohen and Zalameda were only taken to three sets once when Elizabeth Plotkin and Jessica K. Nguyen took the duo the distance in a third-round match up. But Cohen and Zalameda still prevailed, 6-1,5-7,6-0.
With a first-round bye, Cohen and Zalameda needed six wins to capture the title, and got their sixth in the final match against Lindsay Burdette and Alexa N. Glatch, winning 6-2,7-5.