The Skyview High School senior is after a four-peat, of course, and she cruised to victories over Angela Schuster of Timberline and Kana Moriyama of Redmond to advance to the semifinals.
Hampton will play again Saturday morning in hopes of reaching the 2:30 p.m. final.
“I was like, ‘Oh, boy. OK. Here we go,’ ” said Schuster when she learned of the draw: a freshman going up against the three-time champ.
“There was no pressure, though,” Schuster said. “Just go try my hardest.”
Schuster broke Hampton’s serve in the first game of the first set. Then she did it again for a 2-1 lead.
“I was so happy,” Schuster said. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
That was the end of that, though. Hampton won the next 11 games for a 6-2, 6-0 victory.
“I didn’t think I was nervous during warm-ups, but once the match started, oh jeez,” Hampton said. “I was not swinging. I was not moving. And she was not missing anything.”
Hampton turned it around, then set her focus on the quarterfinals.
Moriyama said she liked it when she saw the bracket, when she noticed that Hampton would be waiting for her in the quarterfinals.
“I’d seen her play, but I hadn’t actually played her before,” Moriyama said. “It’s not often I get to play girls who are that good.”
Hampton and Moriyama had a couple of long rallies, with Hampton crediting Moriyama for several winners.
But in the end, it was just too much Hampton, who won 6-2, 6-2.
Hampton was done by 2 p.m., which gave her the rest of the day and the night to think about becoming just the second Class 4A girls tennis player to win four state titles in Washington.
“I’m actually extremely nervous,” Hampton said. “People say there’s no pressure. But there’s a ton of pressure. I have a lot of pressure. Not from others, but from myself.”
• Also at the Columbia Basin Racquet Club, Mountain View’s Amila Gogalija reached the semifinals, winning a three-set thriller over Megan Hagerty of Graham-Kapowsin in the quarterfinals, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1.
Gogalija was trailing 3-love in the second set before turning around the match.
“I was kind of starting to give up,” she acknowledged. “Then, we’ll see where it goes from here. One by one, you know.”
One by one, she started getting all the points, forcing a third set, then dominating the decider to reach the semifinals.
“This means a lot to me,” said Gogalija, a junior who played doubles last year.
• In 4A girls doubles bracket, defending champions Jenn Lewis and Hannah Gianan of Camas, and Union’s Sydney Wallace and McKenzie Schreiner both advanced to the semifinals.
• In the 4A boys singles, Mountain View’s Colton Reed and Skyview’s Andrew Kabacy were both eliminated in two matches.
• In 4A boys doubles, two Mountain View teams — Tyler Sparling/Nick Shiraishi and Justin Yee/Mark Bajtay — lost both of their matches.
• The 3A boys and girls championships are in Kennewick. Prairie’s Akari Baba won her first match but lost her quarterfinal match. She will play for fourth place today. Columbia River’s Lauren Skelly went two-and-out.
• In doubles play, Columbia River’s Nathan Crary and Owen Carlson lost in three sets in the fifth-place semifinal and were eliminated.
Ridgefield’s doubles team of Sarah Kaufman and Sophie Bird advanced to the 2A state semifinals with two victories Friday at the Nordstrom Tennis Center on the University of Washington campus.
In boys doubles, Dat Vo and Thanh Vo of Hudson’s Bay won their first-round match, but then lost in the quarterfinals to fall into the fourth-place semifinal today.
Jasmine Nesbitt of King’s Way Christian lost two matches at Yakima Tennis Center and was eliminated.
