BENTONVILLE -- Stella de Vera admitted she just wanted to go home and get some sleep Monday afternoon.
The Rogers Heritage sophomore earned the right to get a little rest as she won two matches and moved into today's semifinal round of the Class 6A state girls tennis tournament at Memorial Park.
"It was a long day," de Vera said. "Now I have to get ready for [today's] matches. They will be even harder.
"The two matches were super windy, so it wasn't just playing. It was having to play with the wind and against the wind as well.
She entered the tournament as the fourth seed from the 6A-West Conference and moved into the quarterfinals with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Mount St. Mary's Tasha Moreland. She then had to face 6A-Central singles champion Catherine Hahn of Fort Smith Northside and advanced with a 6-2, 6-2 win.
The quarterfinal victory may have seemed like an upset on paper, but de Vera actually had an advantage entering that match. The same two players had faced each other last week, and de Vera won by a 6-1, 6-1 score.
"I just wanted to get every ball in," de Vera said of her strategy. "You don't want to be the person to make that first mistake. If you can get every ball back, it makes it easier on yourself.
"Last week's match helped me know what to expect. I could mentally prepare for it better and get in my head what I needed to do. I just focused on hitting the ball to her backhand, moving my feet and getting that first serve in."
The semifinals will be an all 6A-West affair as de Vera will take on Fort Smith Southside's Cate Cole, who was the conference's second seed and had a first-round bye before she advanced with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Little Rock Central's Jelani Jones.
The other semifinal has Cassie Cervantes of Bentonville West going against Bentonville's Glennah Langford.
Cervantes, the 6A-West's top seed, had a first-round bye before she prevailed 6-0, 6-1 over Fayetteville's Pallavi Verghese. Langford, the conference's No. 3 seed, claimed a 6-1, 6-0 first-round win over Conway's Sussanah DeBlack before she knocked off the 6A-Central's No. 2 seed, Abby Whittaker of Mount St. Mary, with a 6-1, 6-1 decision.
Meanwhile, it was business as usual for Rogers' Jenna Kate Bohnert and Grace Lueders in the doubles competition. The two-time defending state champions enjoyed a first-round bye, then cruised into the semifinals with their 6-0, 6-1 victory over Maddie Bynoe and Emily Fern of Bentonville.
The duo said the match allowed them to focus on some of the things they've continually worked on throughout the season.
"We entered the season implementing a lot of new things, like serve and volley and poaching," Lueders said. "It's a lot of nuances that we didn't have last year. The net play and our serves were pretty solid."
Bohnert and Lueders will play Bentonville West's Paige Weston and Eva Lopez in today's 10 a.m. semifinal round. Weston and Lopez earned a 6-2, 6-1 victory over the Cabot's Ally Miller and Blyss Miller, then returned to the court and defeated Mount St. Mary's Libby Raffaelli and Anna Grace 6-2, 6-2.
The other semifinal will be Khushi Patil and Caroline Lashley of Little Rock Central, the 6A-Central champs, going against another Bentonville West duo in Darby Allison and Liz Files. Both teams had first-round byes, then Patil and Lashley took a 6-0, 6-1 win over Olivia Roberts and Avery Berger of Bentonville while Allison and Files knocked off Ashlyn Pursell and Haley Fulton of Rogers 6-1, 6-0.