May 9, 2002
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 14th-ranked University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team (21-6) earned the No. 14 overall seed and will play host to first- and second-round action in the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championships this weekend at the Courtney Tennis Center (Eck Tennis Pavilion in the case of inclement weather), welcoming three teams also on Notre Dame’s regular-season slate. The Irish, who earned an automatic berth into the field after capturing the BIG EAST title last month, were named as one of 16 host sites for the opening rounds of play when the entire 64-team bracket was announced Thursday evening.
Notre Dame will welcome 40th-ranked Purdue, #47 Michigan and Ball State, taking on the Wolverines on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. in the first round. The Boilermakers and Cardinals will face off at 10:00 a.m. that morning and the winners will play on Sunday at Noon in second-round action, with the winner advancing to the national site of College Station, Texas for the remainder of the championship, to be played from May 18-21.
LAST TIME ON THE COURTS: Top-seeded Notre Dame won a pair of matches to win its third BIG EAST Championship last month in Coral Gables, Fla. The Irish defeated Rutgers 4-0 in the semifinals for the second straight season and the fifth time in seven seasons in the conference. Notre Dame, playing without senior captain Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.) who was taking the Medical College Admissions Test during the match, won the doubles point and each of the bottom three singles matches to clinch the win. Freshman Brent D’Amico (Centennial, Colo.) won in both singles and doubles, registering his first singles win in dual-match play.
The Irish then downed 43rd-ranked Miami 4-1 in Sunday’s final to win the conference championship and earn the league’s automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. Notre Dame won the doubles point and three of the four completed singles matches to gain victory. Smith won in both singles and doubles for the Irish and for the second day in a row, sophomore Matthew Scott (Paris, France) provided the clinching victory. Following the tournament, Notre Dame head coach Bob Bayliss was awarded the BIG EAST coach-of-the-year award, marking the third time in the last five years he has won that distinction. The Irish and Hurricanes have met in the final of all six BIG EAST tournaments since Notre Dame joined the league.
IRISH IN THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP: Notre Dame earned the No. 14 overall seed in this year’s NCAA tournament and will serve as a host site for the first two rounds. For the fourth year in a row, the NCAA Championships consist of a 64-squad team tournament with the field featuring 31 conference champions receiving automatic berths and 33 at-large entrants, selected by the NCAA. The first and second rounds of the team championships will be played at 16 campus sites from Friday-Sunday. The 16 remaining teams will advance to the national site, the A&M Tennis Complex in College Station, Texas for the final four rounds, to be contested May 18-21. This year’s seeding marks the highest for the Irish since 1993. Notre Dame earned a 9-12 seed (four teams grouped, but not differentiated) in both the ’92 and ’93 tournaments. Since the current format was adopted in 1999, the Irish earned a 33-48 seed in the initial year and a 17-32 seed in each of the next two.
Contested since 1883, the national championship was the National Intercollegiate Championship through 1945, with the winner based on point standings from individual singles and doubles play. The format stayed constant, but the tournament became the NCAA Championship in 1946 and remained unchanged for the next 30 years. In 1977, the NCAA Championship became a 20-team event with all teams picked on an at-large basis. In 1994, the event developed into a regional format with the top eight teams in the country and eight regional winners advancing to a bracket of 16, played at a national site. In 1999, the 64-team championship dropped the regional format and implemented first- and second-round matches at 16 campus sites for every team in the championship.
Notre Dame has qualified for the NCAA tournament in each of the last 12 seasons — the longest active streak of any sport at Notre Dame. Only eight other schools in the country have qualified for each NCAA men’s tennis championship since 1991. The best results for Notre Dame since the team format was adopted in 1977 came in the program’s first four berths into the championships, reaching the round of 16 in 1991 and ’94, the quarterfinals in ’93 and losing to Stanford in the ’92 NCAA title match. The Irish have won a pair of national titles in men’s tennis, sharing the 1944 crown with Texas and Miami (Fla.) and earning another shared title with Tulane in 1959.
A season ago, the Irish traveled to Cambridge, Mass. for the NCAA tournament and defeated host Harvard 4-0 in the first round before losing 4-1 to the 15th seed, Washington. In that match, Luis Haddock-Morales (Caguas, Puerto Rico) deliverd the lone Irish point with a straight-set victory at No. 3 singles, but the Huskies won the doubles point and matches at Nos. 1, 4 and 5 singles to gain victory.
The Courtney Tennis Center has played host to NCAA tournament play four times in the past, but 2002 will be the first time Notre Dame has seen NCAA action since the field was expanded to its current size of 64, in 1999. Notre Dame was the national site for the NCAA Championships in 1994 and also played host to early-round NCAA action in 1994, ’95, ’96 and ’98. The Irish are 3-4 in the NCAAs when playing at home, but have lost each of their last three matches.
WELCOME TO THE COURTNEY TENNIS CENTER: Michigan will be the first-round opponent for the Irish. The Wolverines were ranked 43rd in the preseason, moved as high as No. 30 and enter the postseason ranked 47th. Michigan lost in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Championship to eventual finalist Minnesota. One of the Wolverines’ wins was a 4-3 decision over the Irish on March 27, indoors in Ann Arbor, Mich. Michigan won the doubles point and then won each of the top three singles matches to gain victory, including a three-set decision to clinch the match at No. 2 by freshman Matt Lockin. Senior Henry Beam is the only ranked player for the Wolverines, listed at No. 72 in the latest rankings after peaking at 39th last month. Beam is 18-13, playing No. 1 singles, and defeated Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia) 6-2, 6-2 in the Wolverine upset of the Irish.
Michigan holds more victories over Notre Dame than any other school, leading the all-time series 41-20, though the Irish won the only previous NCAA meeting, a 4-0 win in the 1994 Region IV Semifinals at Notre Dame. Notre Dame has won 11 of 15 matches in the Bob Bayliss era. The Wolverines are in the NCAA tournament for the fifth straight year and the eighth time in the last nine. A season ago, Michigan lost to Kentucky in the first round.
Purdue also received an at-large bid into the NCAA Championship. The Boilermakers will be making their fifth appearance in the tournament, all since 1997. Purdue started the season ranked 50th and enters the postseason at a season-high listing of No. 40. The Boilermakers lost to No. 3 Illinois in the semifinals of the Big Ten Championship and are 12-11. Purdue lost 7-0 to Notre Dame on February 17 in the Eck Tennis Pavilion, though a pair of singles matches were decided in three sets. One of the Boilermakers’ wins was against Michigan, a 5-2 home victory in the regular-season finale. Junior Scott Mayer is the lone ranked Boilermaker, listed at 118th in singles. Mayer is 18-16 this season, playing at No. 1 singles.
Notre Dame leads the series 42-8, making Purdue (along with Western Michigan) the most-defeated foe in the 80-year history of Irish tennis. The Irish have taken each of the last 12 meetings and the teams have never met in the NCAA tournament.
Ball State earned an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament as the champion of the Mid-American Conference. The title was the 17th for the Cardinals, who were ranked 75th in the preseason, but are unranked after a 13-13 regular season, including a 4-3 loss to Notre Dame on April 14. In that match, the Irish jumped out to a 4-0 lead and clinched the victory before Ball State rallied to win the final three matches on-court.
Notre Dame leads the all-time series with the Cardinals 28-5 and has won each of the last 13. The teams have never met in postseason play.
FOLLOWING THE NCAA ACTION AT NOTRE DAME: In-progress updates of action in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament at the Courtney Tennis Center can be obtained any of four ways: (1) semi-live updates on www.und.com; (2) semi-live updates on the Notre Dame Sports Hotline at (574) 631-3000; (3) the Courtney Tennis Center press box at (574) 631-7805; (4) the cell phone of Sports Information contact Bo Rottenborn at (330) 831-1646.
Notre Dame’s official athletic website, www.und.com, features information about the weekend’s events and will also have in-progress scores of matches, updated every 15-30 minutes. The Notre Dame Sports Hotline will be updated on a similar timetable and can be accessed by dialing (574) 631-3000 and choosing option #8 for tennis and #1 for men’s tennis. If weather forces the action indoors, updates can also be obtained in the Eck Tennis Pavilion at (574) 631-6929.
SMITH/TABORGA HEADED FOR NCAA DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIP: Seniors Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.) and Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia), the fifth-ranked doubles pair in the nation, earned a bid to the 32-team NCAA Doubles Championships, to be played from May 23-27 in College Station, Texas. The pair has an opportunity to earn All-America honors, which are bestowed upon (1) the eight seeded doubles teams in the tournament; (2) the eight quarterfinalist pairs in the tournament; (3) the top 10 teams in the final edition of the Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings, to be released after the NCAA tournament.
Taborga has qualified for each of the last three NCAA doubles championships, paired with classmate Aaron Talarico (Laguna Beach, Calif.) for each of the last two. The Irish pair lost in the first round in both 2000 and 2001. Smith and Taborga are the 12th doubles team to qualify for the NCAA championships, all since 1991. Taborga and 1993 graduate Chuck Coleman are the only players in Notre Dame history to qualify for the NCAA doubles championships three times. Only once has an Irish pair advanced beyond the round of 16 in the NCAAs — Andy Zurcher and Todd Wilson fell in a tough three-set decision to USC’s Wayne Black and Jon Leach in the semifinals of the ’94 NCAAs, held at the Courtney Tennis Center. That pair earned doubles All-America honors, as did Coleman and David DiLucia in both 1991 and ’92, marking the only three instances of Irish pairs garnering the distinction.
Smith and Taborga are in the midst of one of the most successful seasons of doubles in school history, holding a 30-11 mark. Their victory total marks the highest by a doubles team in a season in the Bob Bayliss era (1988-present). The pair is 15-7 in dual-match action and has defeated 10 ranked teams. The Irish have eight wins over top-30 teams, as well as three over teams currently listed in the national top five (#1 Matkowski/Rojer of UCLA, two against #4 Calkins/Delic of Illinois). Smith and Taborga are just the second doubles team in school history to be ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation, a spot they occupied as recently as last week. DiLucia and Coleman were ranked No. 1 in the nation for a time. Taborga (76-44) and Smith (75-50) are listed fifth and sixth, respectively, on the list of career doubles wins in the Bayliss era. Taborga is just the fourth player in the Bayliss era to register 75 career wins in both singles and doubles, joining Andy Zurcher (’94), Ryan Simme (’97) and Brian Patterson (’99). He is 75-39 in singles and 76-44 in doubles.
This year’s Irish pair had a strong fall season that vaulted them from their No. 34 preseason ranking into the national top 10, where they have remained all spring. Smith and Taborga advanced through qualifying and posted a 6-1 mark (losing only to top-seeded Lipsky/Martin of Stanford) at the ITA All-American Championships en route to capturing the consolation title. The Irish team reached the semifinals in the Omni Hotels Region IV Championships, which helped them earn an at-large bid to the National Indoor Championships. In that tournament, Smith and Taborga defeated the current national No. 1, UCLA’s Matkowski/Rojer, on their way to losing in a tiebreaker in the semifinals.
TABORGA EARNS NCAA SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP INVITE: Senior Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia), ranked 15th nationally in singles, earned a bid to the 64-player NCAA Singles Championships, to be played from May 22-27 in College Station, Texas. Taborga has an opportunity to earn All-America honors, which are bestowed upon (1) the 16 seeded players in the tournament; (2) the players advancing to the round of 16 in the tournament; (3) the top 20 players in the final edition of the Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings, to be released after the NCAA tournament. Taborga could join five-time All-American David DiLucia (’92) as the only players in Notre Dame history to earn singles and doubles All-America honors in the same season.
Taborga is the ninth player in the program’s history to earn a berth in the NCAA singles championships, while his invitation represents the 16th extended to Irish players. 2000 graduate Ryan Sachire was the last Irish player to participate in the tournament, earning a bid in each of his four years.
After never playing higher than No. 2 singles prior to this season, Taborga has turned into one of the top singles players in the nation in 2002. He has posted a 17-5 record at No. 1 and is 26-11 overall, including eight wins over players currently ranked in the top 40 in the nation. Taborga is 19-6 this spring and overall has registered a total of 14 wins over players currently ranked. Highlights of his play include wins over defending NCAA singles and doubles champion and current national No. 1 Matias Boeker of Georgia, #12 Amer Delic of Illinois (twice in 11 days), #23 Alex Hartman of Mississippi, #24 Danny Westerman of Wisconsin, #27 Jeremy Wurtzman of Ohio State, #33 Todd Widom of Miami, #38 Krystian Pfeiffer of SMU and #43 Michael Yani of Duke. Taborga has lost just seven times in his last 30 matches, dating back to October, and all of those defeats have come to players currently in the national rankings (#3 Al Garland of Pepperdine, #4 Harsh Mankad of Minnesota, #6 Jesse Witten of Kentucky, #33 Todd Widom of Miami, #66 Milan Rakvica of Indiana, #72 Henry Beam of Michigan and #79 Aleksey Zharinov of Minnesota). He was named the Most Outstanding Player at the Blue-Gray National Classic after winning all four of his matches, including an upset of ninth-ranked Delic and a win over Harvard’s David Lingman in the last match on-court to earn the Irish a spot in the championship match. At last year’s ITA All-American Championships, Taborga defeated Stanford’s K.J. Hippensteel, currently ranked second in the nation, denying Hippensteel of the title he won in both 1999 and 2001. Out of Taborga’s 11 losses, nine were to players currently ranked in the top 80 and three were decided in match tiebreakers. He advanced to the quarterfinals in last fall’s Region IV Championships before falling to Mankad. Taborga is 21-0 when winning the first set this season and 8-0 in three-set matches. In 2001, he was 23-12 playing No. 2 singles and was 5-3 against ranked players.
THE WINNING WAY: Notre Dame’s two wins in the BIG EAST tournament improved its record to 21-6, marking the most wins for an Irish team entering the postseason since 1994. That squad was 21-9 in the regular season before advancing to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament — the last time Notre Dame advanced that far in the NCAAs.
REMARKABLE RANKINGS: The Irish have had a number of notable rankings this season in both the team and individual Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings. On two occasions this year, Notre Dame was ranked fourth in the team rankings — the second-highest ranking in school history. The only time the Irish were ranked higher was in the final poll of the 1992 season, when Notre Dame was No. 3 after losing in the NCAA final.
Senior Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia) has been ranked as high as 11th in the national singles rankings, marking the highest listing by an Irish singles player since Ryan Sachire finished the 2000 season ranked 11th. Taborga is just the third player in school history to be ranked as high as No. 11 nationally in singles. Sachire was ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation and David DiLucia (’92) is the only Notre Dame player to be ranked No. 1 in the nation in singles.
Taborga and classmate Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.), who were fourth in the national doubles rankings earlier this season, are just the second doubles team in school history to be ranked as high as No. 4. DiLucia and Chuck Coleman, who earned doubles All-America honors in 1991 and 1992, were ranked No. 1 in the nation for a time.
TOUGH SLATE: The road to the postseason has been a challenging one for Notre Dame this year. Out of 27 dual matches for the Irish this spring, 23 times the opponent was ranked in the national top 75 at the time of the match. Out of the 25 teams Notre Dame faced, 18 are participating in the NCAA tournament this weekend. Notre Dame was 17-6 against ranked teams in 2002. Of the opponents on the ’02 slate, 17 are currently ranked in the national top 50 and eight are in the top 25. In addition, Notre Dame played six matches against teams currently in the national top nine (#1 Georgia, #7 Missisippi, #8 Pepperdine, #9 Kentucky and two against #3 Illinois) and the Irish faced 17 teams that advanced to the NCAA tournament a season ago, including six round-of-16 participants and half of the teams who advanced to the final four (SMU and national champion Georgia).
IRISH HEAD COACH: Bob Bayliss is in his 15th year at Notre Dame with a 282-127 (.689) record and his 33rd year as a collegiate coach with a 564-221 mark. His .718 winning percentage is fourth among active coaches and seventh on the all-time NCAA list. Bayliss was named ITA National Coach of the Year in 1992 after leading the Irish to the national title match. Bayliss is also a four-time Region IV coach of the year (including 2001) and has been honored as conference coach of the year six times (three BIG EAST, four Midwestern Collegiate Conference), including the 2002 BIG EAST coach-of-the-year award. He is second among all-time Irish coaches in wins, trailing only Hall-of-Famer Tom Fallon’s 511. Bayliss began his coaching career at Navy, where he coached for 11 years, and then coached at MIT for three years before coming to Notre Dame in 1988. Earlier this year, Bayliss was inducted into the University of Richmond Athletics Hall of Fame. Bayliss, who earned a bachelor’s degree in 1966 and a master’s degree in 1971 from the university, played No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles as a senior on the Spider tennis team.
GOING DEEP: The lower half of the singles lineup has been a strength for Notre Dame over the past two seasons. Last year, the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 spots compiled a combined 53-11 (.828) record in dual matches. In 2002, the bottom half of the singles lineup is 59-16 (.787), making the spots a combined 112-27 (.806) over the past two seasons. The No. 4 singles position, in particular, has been a strength of the Irish. Last year, Notre Dame players compiled a 21-2 record in that slot and all three competitors responsible for that mark returned to the fold in 2002. This season, Irish players are 21-4 at No. 4, making Notre Dame a combined 42-6 (.875) at the position over the past two seasons.
Three Irish players have been particularly dominant playing in the bottom part of the singles lineup this spring. Sophomore Luis Haddock-Morales (Caguas, Puerto Rico) is 27-6 overall this season and 18-5 in dual-match action, playing mostly at No. 4. He has won 11 of his last 13 matches. Classmate Matthew Scott (Paris, France) leads the team in victories with a 31-4 mark, including a sparkling 23-2 record this spring, playing mostly No. 5. His 23 dual-match victories are tied for fourth on the Bayliss-tenure list of singles dual-match wins in a season. In his career, Scott is 48-9 in singles. Senior Andrew Laflin (Tampa, Fla.) is 22-1 in 2001-02, including 16-1 this spring, playing mostly at No. 6. He has won 36 of his last 39 singles tilts.
FINISH WHAT YA STARTED: The top seven singles players for the Irish have been very successful when winning the first set this season. They have combined for a 135-8 (.944) record in 2001-02 when taking the opening set. Particularly successful have been Luis Haddock-Morales (23-0, 38-0 career), Andrew Laflin (20-0, 35 in a row), Matthew Scott (28-1), Javier Taborga (21-0) and Aaron Talarico (16-1).
TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT: Notre Dame players have been successful in third sets this season, with the top six players posting a combined 31-11 (.738) mark in three-setters. Over the past eight matches, Irish players have posted a 9-2 record in three-set matches. Against Indiana State and SMU, there were three tilts decided in three sets and the Irish won all of them in both cases. Senior Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia) has been particularly dominant, winning all eight of his three-set affairs this season.
IRISH INK FIVE: Bob Bayliss recently announced the signing of five incoming freshman for the 2002-03 school year. Patrick Buchanan (Fullerton, Calif.), Shannon Buck (New Braunfels, Texas), Eric Langenkamp (Scarsdale, N.Y.), Sergey Leonyuk (Boca Raton, Fla.) and Steve Roszak (Shawnee Mission, Kan.) have signed national letters of intent to enroll at Notre Dame next year and join the Irish tennis team in the fall. Buchanan is ranked 43rd nationally among players 18 and under and is ranked 20th among high school seniors in the U.S. Buck was ranked fifth in the 16-and-under division last year and is 32nd in the 18s, ranking 13th among seniors. Langenkamp is 67th in the 18s and is the top-ranked high school senior in the Eastern section of the United States Tennis Association and is 33rd among all Americans entering college next year. Leonyuk is a native of Russia who has done well in International Tennis Federation junior tournaments and Bayliss expects him to play at the level of a top 10-to-20 junior in the U.S. Roszak was ranked 44th in the 16s last year and recently won a designated sectional tournament in the MUTA.
BIG EAST’S BEST: The University of Notre Dame has matched the conference record for BIG EAST championships in an academic year. The Irish have captured league titles in six sports this season — men’s cross country, women’s soccer, volleyball, women’s swimming and diving, women’s indoor track and field, and men’s tennis. The BIG EAST record for championships in a season is six, set by Notre Dame in 1996-97, when Irish teams captured crowns in men’s soccer, women’s soccer, volleyball, women’s swimming and diving, men’s golf, and women’s tennis. The Irish have two remaining opportunites to add to this season’s total — this weekend’s softball championship, in which Notre Dame is the top seed, and the baseball championship later this month.
GETTING YOUR TIMING DOWN: Just a reminder that South Bend never changes its clocks, remaining on Eastern Standard Time throughout the year. From now through the end of October, Notre Dame basically will be on Central time, since Eastern Standard Time is the equivalent of Central Daylight Time. When most of the rest of the country returns to Standard time the last Saturday in October, Notre Dame then will match Eastern time.