Lacy Schneemann/Meghan Dizon surged into the women’s doubles semifinals in Utah with an 11-4, 6-11, 11-6 victory over No. 2 seeds Jorja Johnson/Hurricane Tyra Black late Friday afternoon.  

The No. 5 seeds, who took bronze together at the indoor event in Minnesota back in January, found their best form down the stretch to take the win after over an hour on court in front of a near-capacity crowd.

Schneemann spoke afterwards about the challenge of dealing with Johnson and Blacks’s attacks out of the air.

“I think in women’s doubles the trend is generally to hit pretty aggressive dinks and move the ball around to get good looks, but [Johnson and Black] are so effective out of the air that you’ve got to take a lot off your dinks,” she explained. “You have to switch to a lot of dead dinking to make sure you get the ball short in the kitchen so that they can’t take it out of the air.”

A win like Friday’s is especially meaningful for Dizon, who played college tennis at BYU and resides in Utah.

“It’s always great [to compete in Utah]. Everybody’s always cheering all of us Utah players on. My family gets to come out to the west coast tournaments, so I’m happy to have them here. I’m stoked to get a great win today,” she said.

Schneemann/Dizon will face No. 4 seeds Parris Todd/Kate Fahey on Saturday with a spot in the final on the line.