Feb. 13, 2015
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team will hit the road for the first time this season with visits to No. 44 Illinois and No. 52 Indiana this Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
The Fighting Irish are coming off a 4-3 win over then-No. 31 Ohio State on Sunday at the Eck Tennis Pavilion, in which No. 14 Quinn Gleason and Monica Robinson downed No. 26 Gabriella De Santis and Sandy Niehaus for their second ranked win of the season at No. 1 doubles. Robinson clinched the win for the Irish with a 7-6(6), 6-1 comeback win over De Santis at No. 2 singles.
Notre Dame will kick off the weekend with an 11 a.m. ET tilt with Illinois at the Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Illinois. The Illini are 3-1 on the season, with their lone loss of the season coming against No. 21 Kentucky.
The Irish will then head to Bloomington, Indiana, to face the Hoosiers for an 11 a.m. ET affair on Sunday at the IU Tennis Center. Indiana, too, has just one loss, to No. 48 DePaul. Notre Dame will be the second ranked opponent for both Illinois and Indiana this season.
Head coach Jay Louderback is expecting a pair of close matches, as both Indiana and Illinois played Notre Dame to 4-3 Irish wins last season. Louderback is especially looking for close doubles play, as both opponents have exhibited strength in that area.
“The thing that makes both of them tough is that they both, traditionally, have good doubles teams,” Louderback said. “Last weekend, doubles were huge for both matches (against Stanford and Ohio State). I think in the Stanford match, if we’d have won the doubles point, it could have been a different story and we could have put a little more pressure on them. Doubles are going to be key.”
IRISH NOTABLES
- The Atlantic Coast Conference has moved to re-implement the regular scoring format utilized in 2014. To this point in the season, matches have been played with no-ad scoring, based on the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s recommendations for increasing pace of play. All conference matches will once again include an eight-game pro-set for the doubles point with a tiebreak at 7-7, and advantage scoring will be used. For women’s play, doubles play will be stopped once the doubles point is clinched, and singles will utilize a match tiebreak (first to 10 by two) in lieu of a third set once the match is clinched. As agreed upon by the coaches, the Irish will use this scoring this weekend against Illinois and Indiana.
- In the latest ITA doubles poll, Quinn Gleason and Monica Robinson jumped two spots to No. 14 after notching wins over No. 10 Emina Bektas/Alex Najarian (Michigan) and No. 26 Gabriella De Santis/Sandy Niehaus (Ohio State). Gleason and Robinson are 2-2 on the season, and 2-1 against ranked opponents.
- Notre Dame is one of four ACC schools with both men’s and women’s programs ranked in the ITA top 20. The Irish men are ranked 16th, while the women rank 20th. Other ACC programs include North Carolina (women No. 1, men No. 7), Virginia (women No. 7, men No. 3) and Duke (women No. 16, men No. 6).
- Notre Dame is one of five programs with at least one men’s and women’s doubles tandem ranking in the top 20 nationally. The Irish join USC, Vanderbilt, UCLA and Oklahoma State with representatives on the list. Of those programs, Notre Dame is the only school with three such doubles pairs (No. 14 Quinn Gleason / Monica Robinson; men’s No. 4 Billy Pecor / Alex Lawson, No. 17 Josh Hagar / Eddy Covalschi).
By Joanne Norell, Media Relations Assistant
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