Feb. 13, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The No. 2 Notre Dame women’s tennis team opens a difficult stretch of home matches on Wednesday with No. 23 Michigan. First-serve between the Irish and Wolverines is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. inside the Eck Tennis Pavilion.
The Irish (6-1) enter the meeting with Michigan sporting a 21-match dual home winning streak. Notre Dame, which moved up one spot in this week’s ITA National Poll, have not dropped a dual match in South Bend since Feb. 26, 2005 against Texas.
The Irish not only lead the all-time series with the Wolverines, 16-8, but Notre Dame has captured 11 of the last 12 meetings overall and 10 consecutive in South Bend. In fact, Michigan has not defeated Notre Dame outside of Ann Arbor since 1984.
The Wolverines are a perfect 3-0 in dual action. Michigan is led by senior and #81 Jenny Kuehn. She is 3-0 at No. 1 singles and 8-6 overall. Sophomore Chisako Sugiyama is also unbeaten at No. 2 singles. Sugiyama leads the Wolverines with a 15-3 overall record.
As daunting a task as the match with Michigan, Notre Dame will face an even more difficult challenge this weekend. The Irish host No. 7 North Carolina on Friday (5:00 p.m.) before closing the week with No. 20 Wake Forest on Sunday (Noon).
The Tar Heels are 9-2 this spring, including victories over No. 26 Tennessee (6-1), No. 16 TCU (5-2) and No. 9 California (4-3). North Carolina’s only two defeats, both by the slimmest of margins (4-3), came against No. 4 Florida and No. 3 Georgia Tech.
North Carolina has four players ranked among the top 75 players in the entire country. Senior #7 Jenna Long is the highest ranked Tar Heel. Long is 22-4 overall and 9-1 in dual action, including 8-1 at No. 1. The rest of the ranked North Carolina players include freshman #19 Katrina Tsang (19-6, 5-4), sophomore #33 Austin Smith (20-7, 6-4) and freshman #73 Sanaz Marand (24-5, 10-1). The Tar Heels also have three different doubles teams amongst the top 30 in the country. Long and senior Sara Anundsen are ranked #16, while senior Caitlin Collins and Marand are #24. Long and Tsang are rated #26.
Wake Forest, which faces No. 38 Indiana on Friday, is 4-0. The Demon Deacons have knocked off South Alabama, Minnesota, Syracuse and Kansas. Wake Forest has three singles players among the top 80. Junior Alex Hirsch (15-5, 3-1) is ranked #29, while sophomore Christian Tara (13-4, 4-0) is #55 and senior Ashlee Davis (10-7, 2-2) is #79. Davis and Sasha Kulikova are the only Demon Deacon doubles team ranked (#49).
— ND —