Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Official Athletics Website

No. 21 Women's Tennis In NCAA Tournament For Seventh Straight Year

May 2, 2002

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 21st-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team earned an at-large berth into the 64-team field of the Division I NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships and will travel to Evanston, Ill. to take part in first- and second-round action from May 10-12, it was announced Thursday evening. The Irish will face #30 Wisconsin in the first round, while Illinois-Chicago and 15th-ranked and host Northwestern will also square off in first-round play at the site, with the winners meeting in the second round on May 12. Senior Lindsey Green (El Cajon, Calif.) and junior Katie Cunha (Mercer Island, Wash.) also earned a berth in the 32-team NCAA Doubles Championship, to be played May 16-25 in Palo Alto, Calif.

“We are just excited to be in the tournament and also to have a chance to play at a site with three other teams from our region. It will be great to have all four teams from the same region.” said Irish head coach Jay Louderback.

Cunha and Green have played together for just over a month — a fact that Louderback was concerned could hurt their chances at gaining entrance into the doubles tournament: “I was worried they wouldn’t get in because they hadn’t played a lot of matches. But they are one of the best doubles teams in the region and they have competed well on the national level. It’s very nice for Lindsey to get in as a senior and it’s also great for Katie because it will help her going into next season.”

The Irish, who enter the tournament with a 14-13 mark, qualified for the NCAA tournament for the seventh straight year and the ninth time in the last 10 seasons. Notre Dame has reached the round of 16 on four occasions, including each of the last two seasons (also in the program’s first two appearances, 1993 and ’94). The best result for the Irish came in 1996 when they advanced to the national quarterfinals before falling to Stanford.

Wisconsin also earned an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament after a regular season in which it finished second in the Big Ten and posted a 16-8 record overall. One of the Badgers’ losses was a 7-0 decision at the hands of the Irish in the Eck Tennis Pavilion on March 1. In that match, Notre Dame swept the doubles contests and took all six singles tilts to gain victory, though two matches were decided in third-set tiebreakers and another went to a match tiebreaker. Notre Dame has won each of the last six meetings between the schools, but the teams have split two previous NCAA appearances, with the Badgers upsetting the host Irish in the 1997 Midwest Regional Semifinals and Notre Dame gaining revenge in the same round the following year in Champaign, Ill.

The berth for Cunha and Green, the first in both of their careers, marks the 10th consecutive year that a Notre Dame doubles pair has earned a bid in the NCAA championships. Three Irish doubles teams have reached the national quarterfinals with Michelle Dasso and Jennifer Hall doing it most recently, in 1999. Cunha and Green, ranked 55th nationally, had never teamed up a month ago, when the two were penciled into Louderback’s lineup at the No. 1 spot against the nation’s top-ranked doubles team from Wake Forest. Though they lost their debut, Cunha and Green are 5-2 since then with another match abandoned with them leading 7-4. Of the two other losses for the Irish team, one was in a tiebreaker and one was to the 38th-ranked pair in the nation. Green will finish her career as one of the most successful doubles players in the program’s history. She holds a 104-40 (.722) mark in partnered play, which places her in a tie for second place (with classmate Becky Varnum) in career doubles triumphs, just five shy of the school record, held by 2001 graduate Dasso. Overall this season, Green holds a 23-16 record in doubles, while Cunha is 17-21.

Illinois-Chicago comes into the tournament on a hot streak, having won seven straight and 11 of its last 12 and posting shutouts in each of those victories. UIC gained entrance into the NCAA Championships as the Midwestern Collegiate Conference champion. Notre Dame has defeated the Flames in all seven meetings, including the first round of the 1999 and 2000 NCAA tournaments.

Northwestern, seeded 16th overall in the tournament, earned an automatic berth with its fourth consecutive Big Ten tournament championship. The Wildcats (21-5) have won 10 in a row, including a 4-3 victory over the Irish in the Eck Tennis Pavilion on April 6. In that match, Notre Dame won the doubles point, but the ‘Cats took four of six singles matches to win. With the match tied 3-3, Ruth Barnes won the final five games of her match to secure a 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 victory at No. 6 and give Northwestern the victory. Notre Dame and Northwestern have a long rivalry, with the Wildcats leading the all-time series 15-8 — giving them the distinction of having defeated the Irish more times than any other school in the program’s history. Notre Dame defeated Northwestern in the first round of the 1998 Midwest Regional in the only postseason meeting of the schools.

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 will feature 31 conference champions receiving automatic berths and 33 at-large entrants, selected by the ITA. 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, Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., which will play host to the final four rounds of the team championship, as well as the entire singles and doubles championships from May 16-25.