Sept. 29, 2015
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team will face a 2015-16 schedule rife with challenges and opportunities, with fall tournaments starting in earnest this weekend.
The Irish schedule, released Tuesday, will feature seven fall tournaments as primers for a 24-match spring dual schedule that features 15 opponents who finished the 2014-15 season ranked in the Oracle/ITA Women’s Team Rankings.
Notre Dame will kick off the season Friday at the Purdue Invite before the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championships begin with qualifying rounds next Monday, October 5. The Irish will be represented by junior Monica Robinson and senior Quinn Gleason, who will compete in both singles and doubles. Gleason and Robinson enter the season ranked No. 10 in the national doubles rankings, while Gleason ranks No. 93 and Robinson comes in at No. 101 in the singles poll.
The Irish will get a few weeks off before heading to the ITA Midwest Regional Championships, hosted October 22-27 at the University of Michigan, which will serve as a qualifier for the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships (Nov. 12-15). In between, the Irish will split time at the Illinois Blast (Nov. 6-8) and host the Bedford Cup (Nov. 6-8). Those not competing at the national championships will play at the Lakewood Ranch Invitational (Nov. 13-15) to close out the fall slate.
The spring season will begin January 19, 2016, when the Irish host Western Michigan. Then, the Irish will head to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for the ITA Kickoff Weekend with matches against Oklahoma State (No. 12 in final 2015 Oracle/ITA rankings) and either Northwestern (No. 26) or Arizona State (No. 27), January 23-24. The next weekend, the Irish will host a doubleheader with Illinois (No. 55) and Bowling Green.
Following the ITA National Team Indoor Championships (Nov. 5-8), the Irish will return to the Eck Tennis Pavilion to host its first Atlantic Coast Conference matchup on February 12 against Pittsburgh before heading back to Ann Arbor to take on Michigan (No. 13) on February 14. Notre Dame will head back to Purdue for the second time on the year on February 17 to take on the Boilermakers (No. 43), then swing back home to host Indiana (Feb. 20; No. 48) and Louisville (Feb. 21) on back-to-back days.
The Irish will close out February on the road, heading first to Boston to face Boston College (Feb. 26; No. 50), then continuing north to face Syracuse (Feb. 28). They will then head south for spring break, first clashing with Miami (No. 15) on March 6 before traveling to Puerto Rico, where they will play both East Carolina and Long Island, which will close out the nonconference schedule.
Notre Dame will welcome Wake Forest on March 18 before heading to North Carolina to take on NC State (March 24) and UNC (No. 4; March 26). The Irish will open April against Florida State (No. 39) April 1, then head back east to face Duke (No. 19) in Durham, N.C. on April 3. Clemson (No. 18; April 8), Georgia Tech (No. 20; April 10) and Virginia Tech (No. 30) will all visit within a week in mid-April, and the Irish will wrap the regular season at Virginia (No. 9; April 17) before the ACC Championships begin April 20 in Cary, North Carolina.
To keep up with all things Irish women’s tennis, be sure to follow @NDWomensTennis on Twitter and like Notre Dame Women’s Tennis on Facebook.
Joanne Norell, Athletics Communications Assistant
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