The Future Has Arrived: 17-Year-Old Caty McNally Starts 2019 DTC on the Right Foot

MIDLAND, Michigan, January 30, 2019 – A lot can happen in 100 days in sports.
 
Just over three months ago, Caty McNally was getting ready for the $80K event in Macon, Georgia. It had been over seven months since she last advanced past the quarterfinals in either singles or doubles.
 
That week in Macon, Caty righted the ship as she and her partner, Jessica Pegula, claimed their first doubles title as a team.
 
Two weeks later in Kansas, McNally went eight straight matches without dropping a set en route to her first career professional singles title. She coupled that with a semi-finals appearance in doubles, which she would repeat a week later in Daytona Beach.
 
That brings us to this week.
 
McNally is competing in the 31st annual Dow Tennis Classic. Again, she finds herself paired with Pegula for doubles.  And again, McNally looks to be off to another strong tournament performance.
 
“I had a couple of really strong weeks,” said McNally, “I won my first professional singles title in Kansas and I think that definitely helped me because I had to go through qualifying and win eight matches.  That was a really big step for me, I hadn’t done that in a while.”
 
Tuesday night, she and Pegula opened up their doubles campaign with a 6-2, 1-6, 10-8 victory over Maegan Manasse and Sanaz Marand. 
 
McNally followed that up Wednesday with a strong showing as she took down fellow Cincinnati native Nicole Gibbs 6-0, 7-5.
 
“The first set I was playing really well. I stuck to my game plan and was executing really well,” said McNally of her opening singles match, “In the second set it was pretty tight throughout the whole set. She definitely picked it up a level and that made it a little tougher on me, but in the end, I was able to just stick with my game and was able to come through.
 
McNally says she is focusing on sticking to playing her game and is taking the week match by match as she attempts to duplicate the successes of the 2018. 
 
Next up, she will take on Rebecca Marino in R2 of singles and then take to the court for doubles again later in the day.