ORLANDO – The Gonzaga doubles tandem of Sophie Whittle and Graciela Rosas showed major resolve in a first-round comeback victory at the NCAA Doubles Championships on Tuesday in Orlando, Fla.

The GU pair dropped the first set, but battled back all match long to force a third set tiebreak and ultimately claim the win over Kentucky's Justina Mikulskyte and Akvile Parazinskaite.  Gonzaga moves on to face the tournament's No. 1-seeded USC tandem of Angela Kulikov and Rianna Valdes in the Round of 16 on Wednesday at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET.

"I was so impressed with their focus tonight," head coach D.J. Gurule said. "It is such a difficult situation to wait so long to play, but they stayed the course and never let up. We have a quick turnaround, but they will definitely be ready to play tomorrow."

In the first set, GU held tough, but after getting down a break, they weren't able to hold on as Kentucky took the set 6-4.

The second set saw a fast start by the Zag pair, as Whittle and Rosas got out to a 3-1 lead. After Kentucky came back to tie it 4-4, Gonzaga won the game on Whittle's serve and then took a break-point to win the set.

In the third-set super tiebreaker, it was point-for-point until GU was down 9-10. The Zag duo turned away that match point and then won the next two points to take it 12-10 and claim the match.

Whittle and Rosas improved their season mark to 21-3 overall and 5-3 over ranked opponents.