It was a day of upsets Wednesday at the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Not only did the top seed, medalist Rachel Kuehn, fall in the opening round of match play at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, but so, too, did seven of the top eight seeds, as well as Rose Zhang, far and away the top-ranked women’s amateur in the world and the event’s defending champion.
Then again, that’s match play.
Kuehn, a rising junior at Wake Forest, drew Kentucky’s Marissa Wenzler in the Round of 64. Wenzler had survived a 12-for-2 playoff a day earlier for the last ticket into match play, and she carried that momentum – which built upon her brilliant week last month at the Women’s Western Amateur, where she medaled and won the match-play title – into her bout with Kuehn.