May 2, 2002
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 14th-ranked University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team 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 from May 11-12 at the Courtney Tennis Center, 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, May 11 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, May 12 at 1:00 p.m. in second-round action.
In addition, Irish seniors Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.) and Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia), ranked fifth nationally, qualified for the 32-team NCAA doubles championship, while Taborga earned a place in the 64-competitor field of the NCAA singles championships.
“As excited and honored as we are to be playing host to an NCAA regional, we are very aware that Michigan beat us earlier in the year and we know the difficulty of the task ahead of us.” said Irish head coach Bob Bayliss. “It should be one of the most exciting regional tournaments in the country because both Purdue and Ball State also have terrific squads.”
“This is the culmination of four years of hard work for both Casey and Javier,” said Bayliss of the berths in the singles and doubles tournaments earned by his players. “I feel that Javier in singles and Casey and Javier in doubles have an excellent chance for a terrific showing. These two have made great progress since their freshmen seasons, when Javier was not a regular in our lineup and Casey played at No. 5 singles, and that is especially rewarding for me as a coach. These are great guys and I wish them all the success in the world.”
The Irish, who enter the tournament with a 21-6 mark, qualified for the NCAA tournament for the 12th consecutive season — the longest active streak of any sport at Notre Dame. Only eight other schools in the country have qualified for each NCAA tournament since 1991. The best results for Notre Dame 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.
Michigan earned an at-large bid into the tournament with a 15-8 record. On of the Wolverines’ wins was a 4-3 decision over the Irish on March 27 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 Matt Lockin. 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.
Smith and Taborga are 30-11 this season, marking the most wins by a doubles team in a season under Bayliss. The senior team has registered three wins over top-five squads this year (one over #1 Matkoswki/Rojer of UCLA and two over #4 Calkins/Delic of Illinois). 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.
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. The senior is ranked 15th nationally in singles and heads into the postseason with a 26-11 overall record, including 17-5 at No. 1 singles after never playing the position prior to this season. Taborga has 10 wins over ranked opponents, including six over players ranked in the nation’s top 30. Among those wins is a straight-set triumph over national No. 1 and defending NCAA singles and doubles champion Matias Boeker of Georgia, making Taborga the only player in the country to have defeated both the current No. 1 doubles team and the nation’s top-ranked singles player this season.
Ball State earned an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament as the Mid-American Conference champion. The Cardinals are 13-13 on the season, including a 4-3 loss to Notre Dame on April 14, though 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.
Purdue gained entrance into the NCAAs with an at-large bid after advancing to the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament and posting a 12-11 mark. The Boilermakers 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. 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 teams have never met in the NCAA tournament.
Notre Dame’s Courtney Tennis Center will play host to NCAA tournament play for the fifth time, but the first 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 and have lost each of their last three matches.
The 2002 NCAA Championships consist of a 64-squad team tournament, a 64-player singles tournament and a 32-team doubles tournament. The singles and doubles fields are entirely determined by the NCAA, while the field for the team championships features 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, May 10-Sunday, May 12. 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. Wednesday, May 22 features the first round of the singles championship at the same location, while the singles and doubles tournaments will progress through the second round, round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final from May 22-27.