Swirling in on the heels of Hurricane Isabel, the ladies of the LPRA tour converged on Charlotte, North Carolina for the third year in a row on September 19-21 to compete for the largest purse awarded at any event thus far this season. Through the efforts of the new tour commissioner, Claude Crocker, and long time tour player Janet Myers, last year's $15,000 prize money was matched once again. 

Notably absent from the draw was Jackie Rice, who has been nursing an ankle injury on and off for what must seem, to her, like an eternity. Her absence gave the #2 seed position to previous U.S. Open Champion Kerri Wachtel.

The round of 16 saw only three matches go beyond straight game wins, and an injury forfeit in the slated mother/daughter playoff between Gerri Stoffregen and No.2 ranked Kerri Wachtel. Gerri forfeited to her daughter Kerri after suffering a whiplash injury in a waterskiing accident earlier in the week, but promised to teach her a lesson later on. 

Kristen Walsh had her hands full with a scrappy Doreen Fowler in a match that seemed as if it would never end. With Kristen spending as much time on the floor diving as she did on both feet, she managed to pull out the win in five, (7), 6, 7, (9), and 2. In the other five-gamer, a tough No.12 Rachel Gellman pulled out the upset over No.5 Adrienne Fisher, 8, (6), (9), 9, and 8, in a match that was all about three-shot rallies at 150mph, ace drives and blistering returns. The third match pitted Brenda Kyzer (who has risen in the ranks from #25 last year to #11) against #10 ranked Suzy Acosta. In this tournament, the two were in the No.8 and No.9 spots, and the slightly higher-rated Brenda was able to pull out the win after dropping the first game 6-11, then going on to win the next three, 5, 4, and 4. 

In the quarters Brenda's next opponent was the No.1 seeded Cheryl Gudinas, who was stunned by a series of forehand drive aces that she simply couldn't get her racquet on. Brenda held a remarkable 10-2 lead in the first game before Cheryl was able to get into a rally and then mount a comeback. 

To get back on track, Gudinas recalled a Lynn Adams quote "If I can get it to 3-10, it's still a game," and later admitted "I was trying to weather the storm with Brenda's serves, hoping she would get out of her rhythm eventually. But she kept it up for one and three-quarter games. It was frustrating and hard to react to, since she was so close to the side wall." 

Both continued to play some great ball, and Cheryl gritted it out to take the first game 12-10. It was more of the same in the second, up to 8-7, when Brenda met Cheryl's racquet with her forehand on a down the line shot. Cheryl made the shot to tie it up at 8-8 and turned around to see Brenda — apparently dazed but hardheaded — on the floor. Expectedly, that became the turning point, and while Brenda returned to play quickly, the second game went to Cheryl, 11-9.

Shaken up and all out of aces, Brenda eventually fell in the third, 11-2, after a 17-point run (following the blow) driven by Cheryl's consistency and pinpoint shotmaking. 

Kersten Hallander drew the focused Rachel Gellman in the quarters, but the veteran’s experience advanced Kersten 10, 6, (6), and 5. The only tiebreaker in the round was between Rhonda Rajsich and Kim Russell. This had to be one of the best matches of the tournament with Kim pulling out the upset win over Rhonda, 10, (4), 4, (4), and 3. The last quarter saw Kerri Wachtel make only an handful of mistakes in her first two games against Kristen Walsh, winning 2 and 6. But Kristen put together a gutsy third game before Kerri was able to secure her place in the semis with a 13-11 win.

The first semi on Saturday evening pitted Kim Russell against Kerri Wachtel. Kim had been playing well and seemed confident going into the match, but Kerri showed why she has risen to the top-four on tour, and only dropped one game in advancing to the final, 9 (6) 5, 3. In the remaining semifinal Cheryl Gudinas went up against Kersten Hallander and continued her tournament streak of not dropping a single game and took the win 1, 7, and 3.

The final was closer than the scores would suggest. Taking her cue from the earlier match with Kyzer, Cheryl used ace drive serves four times in the first six points to take a 6-3 lead, before it became Kerri's turn to toss in a couple of sliders of her own and even the score. One point more for each of them gave Kerri her limit, and Cheryl pulled away with a series of solid shots, for an 11-6 finish. Cheryl kept her distance in the second, gaining a quick 5-0 lead, then cruising to an 11-4 game advantage with more ace serves, patient and cautious ceiling ball rallies, plus an unerring backhand. 

Down two games to none, Kerri still never goes away, and she fought back to take the only game of the weekend from Cheryl. In the third, Kerri took her second early lead of the match, with a 4-0 start, then controlled the rest of the game with her own skillful backhand. She placed a series of effective cross-court passes with it, and dropped in enough flat out winners to keep Gudinas at bay and earn her 11-5 win to keep the match alive. 

But in the fourth and final game, both players buckled down and while Cheryl took a quick 3-0 lead on her first serve, Kerri stayed in the game to 4-4, 5-5, 6-6 and 7-7. From there, Gudinas took another tack and began to z- and lob serve to the forehand, and ran the next three points on errors to reach match point. Stalled at 10, Kerri continued to skip forehands on offense to give Cheryl four more chances to sideout, before she was able to force a final error from her close friend and rival. A final z-serve to the right ended the match with a skipped return by Wachtel and yet another tour victory for Gudinas.