The field was cut down from 32 to eight after two more rounds of match play at the 71st U.S. Girls’ Junior at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis. on Thursday.
No. 1 seed Yuka Saso continued her dominant run through the event, first defeating Phoebe Brinker 3&2 in the morning Round of 32 before making quick work of Anne Chen 5&4 in the afternoon’s Round of 16 to advance to the quarterfinals on Friday.
Rose Zhang, who won a share of medalist honors at the Toyota Junior Golf World Cup earlier this month and has rapidly risen through the amateur ranks, earned the largest margin of victory on the day, defeating Michaela Morad 7&6 in the Round of 32 before closing out Kelly Xu 4&3 in the Round of 16 to advance.
MORE: U.S. Girls’ Junior | Photo gallery | Rankings
No. 7 seed Lei Ye defeated Grace Summerhays, whose brother won the U.S. Junior Amateur last weekend and caddied for her this week, 6&5 in the Round of 16. Brooke Seay earned the final quarterfinal spot by defeating Grace Kim in a playoff that lasted three holes.
Of the eight players to advance to the quarterfinals, just three entered the event seeded inside the top 10: Saso (1), Jillian Bourdage (5) and Ye (7).
Here are the quarterfinal matches, which begin at 7:30 a.m. ET. Semifinal matches will follow in the afternoon.
- 7:30 a.m. ET: Yuka Saso vs. Rose Zhang
- 7:40 a.m. ET: Lauren Beaudreau vs. Jillian Bourdage
- 7:50 a.m. ET: Brooke Seay vs. Lei Ye
- 8 a.m. ET: Nicole Whiston vs. Briana Chacon
