April 14, 2004
No. 24 NOTRE DAME WELCOMES No. 11 NORTHWESTERN FOR FINAL HOME MATCH IN THURSDAY “GOLD GAME”: The 24th-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team (10-8) will conclude its home schedule by playing host to #11 Northwestern (15-4) on Thursday at the Courtney Tennis Center at 3:45 p.m. (EST). The matchup of Midwest Region rivals is the women’s tennis “Gold Game,” a distinction created by Student-Athlete Advisory Council to encourage the entire Notre Dame community to attend particular contests.
LAST TIME ON THE COURTS: The Irish dropped a pair of road matches over Easter weekend, surrendering a 3-1 lead in losing 4-3 to #43 William & Mary on Saturday before falling 5-2 to #14 Texas two days later. It was the second year in a row in which the Irish held a two-point lead against the Tribe only to see W&M rally for a 4-3 win. Tribe freshman Kristen Dunbar delivered the decisive blow, defeating Notre Dame junior Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) at No. 6 singles with the score tied 3-3. With the Irish leading 3-1, the Tribe comeback began when Megan Muth, ranked 25th nationally in singles, upset 11th-ranked Irish senior co-captain Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.) 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 at No. 1. Amy Wei won a third-set tiebreaker to even the score at 3-3. She defeated freshman Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (7-3) at No. 3. In the final match on court, Dunbar held team match point, serving at 5-3 in the third set, when play was halted due to rain. Following a 20-minute delay and a three-minute warmup period, the Tribe freshman won the first point, clinching the William & Mary triumph with a 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 victory. Notre Dame started off well, winning the doubles point for the 11th time this season with wins at the bottom two positions. Freshman Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) put the Irish up 2-0 with a 6-4, 6-0 upset of #109 Lena Sherbakov at No. 2 singles. Sophomore Lauren Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) put the Irish up 3-1 with a win at No. 4.
The Longhorns won the doubles point and four of six singles matches for Monday’s victory, though the Irish got a pair of three-set victories from the Thompson twins. Half of the singles matches were decided in three sets, and the Irish won a pair of them after the Longhorns held a 5-0 advantage. Christian Thompson won her fourth straight, defeating Katie Ruckert 6-4, 4-6, 6-0 at No. 2. In the final match on court, Catrina Thompson beat Mia Marovic of Croatia 6-4, 4-6, 6-0 at No. 3. Notre Dame’s other triumph came at No. 2 doubles, where Salas and Lauren Connelly beat Marovic and another Croatian, Petra Dizdar, 9-7.
IRISH vs. WILDCATS: After being 14th in the preseason, Northwestern comes to Notre Dame ranked 11th after peaking at sixth earlier this spring. The Wildcats have won seven of their last eight and with a 15-4 record. Northwestern, with a 5-1 league mark, stands in a tie with Illinois for second place in the Big Ten standings, 1/2 match behind Indiana (6-1). The Wildcat losses this season came to #4 Georgia (4-3 in USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships quarterfinals), #10 Duke (5-2), #9 North Carolina (5-2), and #24 Illinois (4-3). Northwestern has wins over five teams currently ranked in the top 30: #8 Washington (4-3), #16 Texas A&M (6-1), #21 Kentucky (6-1), #29 New Mexico (4-3), and #30 Indiana (6-1). This will be just the fifth match away from home this spring for the Wildcats, who are 2-3 on the road. Northwestern has a busy weekend ahead, as it will play host to Penn State and Ohio State on Saturday and Sunday after taking on the Irish. Notre Dame and the Wildcats have played eight common opponents, going 4-4 and 5-3, respectively, against them. Both teams have wins against Indiana, Iowa, Marquette, and Wisconsin, and both squads have lost to Duke, Illinois, and North Carolina. The lone different result came against William & Mary, as Northwestern beat the Tribe 5-2, and the Irish surrendered a 3-1 lead in dropping a 4-3 decision to W&M.
Sophomore Cristelle Grier of England has been ranked among the nation’s top four singles players all season and is currently listed third with a 28-3 record and a 10-match winning streak. She is 18-1 this spring at No. 1, bringing her career dual-match record to 43-1 (25-0 in ’03), with all of her action coming at the top of the singles lineup. Her lone defeat in dual-match play came against Duke’s Amanda Johnson. Grier’s two losses in the fall came against Jackie Carleton of UCLA and Agata Cioroch of Georgia, with the latter decided in a third-set tiebreaker in the semifinals of the National Indoor Championships. Grier beat Irish freshman Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) 6-0, 6-2 in the quarterfinals and senior Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.) in the final en route to winning the singles title in the ITA Midwest Championships. Grier holds a 76-12 (.864) career record, but one of her losses was a 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 decision against Salas in consolation play of the 2002 adidas Invitational. Grier has won all three rematches since then, including at No. 1 in last season’s dual match and in the first round of the 2003 NCAA Singles Championship.
Grier and senior Jessica Rush are currently second in the ITA national doubles rankings after being No. 1 earlier this spring. The pair has a 28-4 record, including 15-3 in dual matches, with losses against Georgia, North Carolina, and Illinois. In the fall, Grier and Rush won titles in the Midwest Championships and National Indoors and suffered their only loss in the title match of the All-American Championships against a Vanderbilt team. They posted an 8-5 win against Notre Dame junior Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) and sophomore Kristina Stastny (St. Louis, Mo./St. Joseph’s Academy) in the round of 16 of the regional tournament.
Rush is ranked 55th in singles after peaking at 36th earlier this spring. She is 25-8 this season, including 14-5 in dual matches at No. 2. Rush, who has won seven of her last eight, was the opponent of Notre Dame’s Caylan Leslie (Newport Beach, Calif./Corona del Mar H.S.) in last fall’s adidas Invitational, when the Irish senior had to retire late in the first set in what would be her second and final match of 2003-04, prior to a season-ending shoulder injury. Rush fell 6-3, 6-3 to Salas in the semifinals of the ITA Midwest Championships last fall and was defeated by current Irish sophomore Lauren Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) 6-3, 6-4 in the ’02 adidas Invitational for Connelly’s first career win against a ranked player (Rush was 52nd). Rush gained revenge with a 6-4, 6-0 victory in the first round of last fall’s regional tournament.
Other Wildcats who have been strong this season include Connie Chiang, who is 14-4 in singles, including 7-0 in dual matches at No. 6. Sophomore Jamie Peisel has won nine in a row at No. 4 and is 19-11 on the season, while freshman Alexis Prousis is 23-7, including 16-3 in dual matches at Nos. 3 and 4. Peisel and Prousis are 18-6 in doubles, including 13-4 in dual matches at No. 2.
In all, Notre Dame and Northwestern players met 10 times last fall, with each side taking five matches. Both Salas and freshman Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) notched wins over 69th-ranked Andrea Yung, who plays No. 5. Thompson’s was a 7-6, 6-1 affair in the adidas Invitational, while Salas’ win was 6-2, 6-3 in the second round of the Midwest Championships. Thompson also had a 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-7) win over Ruth Barnes, the Wildcats’ No. 6 player, in consolation action in the regional indoor tournament, while senior Emily Neighbours (Indianapolis, Ind./Park Tudor School) beat Kristi Roemer 6-2, 6-3 in qualifying for that event in a battle of players not regularly in the singles lineup this spring.
Northwestern returned all eight letterwinners from last year’s team that was 19-9 and finished 18th in the national rankings. The Wildcats were 8-2 in the Big Ten Conference, finishing second in the regular season before winning the league tournament. Northwestern played host to the first two rounds of the NCAA Championship, but fell 4-1 to Kansas State in the opening round. Grier, the Big Ten Player of the Year, finished ninth in singles and 13th in doubles with Rush, reaching the quarterfinals of the NCAA singles tournament, but failing to win a match in the doubles event. Rush was 68th in singles, while Yung finished 109th.
Claire Pollard is in her sixth season leading the Northwestern program, having compiled a 124-34 (.785) record. She has a 197-96 (.670) overall mark in 10-plus seasons of coaching, having previously led the Lamar and Mississippi State programs.
Notre Dame and Northwestern will meet for the 17th consecutive season and 25th time overall. The Wildcats, the most-common opponent in the varsity history of the Irish program, lead the series 16-8, based largely on 11 consecutive victories to start the series, from 1976-91. The first Notre Dame win was a 6-3 home victory in 1992. Northwestern has won each of the last three after the Irish had taken six in a row prior to that (from 1996-2000). The teams met once in the NCAA tournament, a 6-2 Notre Dame victory in ’98. This will be the fifth consecutive meeting in which both teams are ranked among the national top 25. The Irish have won three of the last four at home, though Northwestern is 6-4 all-time in trips to Notre Dame. In the most recent, Barnes pulled off a three-set win over Sarah Jane Connelly with the match tied 3-3, giving NU a 4-3 triumph in 2002.
On Jan. 30, 2003, #16 Northwestern dealt #21 Notre Dame a shutout for the first time since 1984, winning 7-0 in Evanston, Ill. The Wildcats swept the doubles and did not lose more than four games in a single set in singles.
ITA RANKINGS: After losing 4-3 to #43 William & Mary on Saturday, Notre Dame fell one spot to 24th in this week’s Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) national rankings, which are determined by the point-per-match computer formula. The 5-2 defeat on Monday at #14 Texas will not factor into the rankings until next week. The Irish now have been listed in the top 25 in 138 of the last 144 sets of rankings, dating back to the preseason of 1995.
Notre Dame’s top singles player and top doubles team are represented in the most recent set of individual national rankings, released April 6 and also based on the ITA’s computer formula. Despite having lost five of her last six matches (four of the losses against top-30 players), senior co-captain Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.) still stands 11th in the singles rankings, down one from her previous position. She is 23-13 on the season, including 11-7 in dual matches at No. 1 and a 14-9 record against ranked opponents. Only five Irish players have been ranked among the nation’s top 11 since Notre Dame gained Division I status in 1985-86: Salas, current assistant coach Michelle Dasso (’01), Jennifer Hall (’99), Wendy Crabtree (’95), and Melissa Harris (’92). After having lost two of three matches and having had another abandoned since the previous set of rankings, freshman Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) dropped out after being 92nd. She and twin sister Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) moved back into the doubles rankings at 57th after being absent in the previous set. The duo had split four matches since dropping out of the rankings, registering an 8-6 upset of the 22nd-ranked team of Melissa Applebaum and Megan Bradley from Miami. The Thompsons are 18-14 this season, including 9-9 in dual matches at No. 1.
Only four seniors — California’s Raquel Kops-Jones (#4), Georgia’s Agata Cioroch (#6), Duke’s Amanda Johnson (#9), and Salas — are ranked among the nation’s top 20. Salas is the fifth-highest-ranked American player, behind #1 Alexis Gordon of Florida (Windsor, Conn.), #2 Megan Bradley (Columbia, Mo.), Kops-Jones (Fresno, Calif.), Johnson (Bettendorf, Iowa), and #10 Amber Liu of Stanford (La Mesa, Calif.).
IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE: Notre Dame has struggled this season in outdoor play, going 0-6 in matches played outside. The Irish, who hold a 10-2 record in indoor action, lost to #6 Duke (6-1) and Tennessee (6-1) in Wikaloa, Hawaii over spring break before dropping outdoor road matches against Wake Forest (7-0), #9 North Carolina (5-0), William & Mary (4-3), and #14 Texas (5-2). The Irish have lost seven in a row outdoors, dating back to last season. Notre Dame’s last victory in a match played outside was a 4-0 win against Missouri on May 9, 2003, in the first round of the NCAA Championship in Nashville, Tenn. The Irish were 4-3 in outdoor play in ’03.
RARE LOSS AFTER WINNING DOUBLES POINT: On Saturday at William & Mary, Notre Dame won the doubles point, but then lost four of six in singles to lose 4-3. The Irish had previously gone on to win the match after taking the doubles point in 18 consecutive matches, since last year’s loss to William & Mary (4-3 on March 23). In matches other than against the Tribe, Notre Dame has gone on to win the match 20 times in a row after taking the doubles point.
COURTNEY TENNIS CENTER OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Though the Irish frequently practice in the facility, Thursday will mark the first actual women’s tennis match action seen by the Courtney Tennis Center in just under three years, the longest-ever period between matches in the facility. The last time Notre Dame played outside at home was May 12-13, 2001, notching 4-0 decisions in the first two rounds of the NCAA Championship against Eastern Michigan and Tulane. The last regular-season match played at the Courtney Tennis Center was a 6-1 win over Iowa on March 30, 2001. Senior Caylan Leslie (Newport Beach, Calif./Corona del Mar H.S.) played No. 4 singles in the ’01 NCAA matches, but no other current Notre Dame players have played in collegiate competition at the Courtney Tennis Center. The Irish have won six in a row at the Courtney Tennis Center, dating back to a 5-4 defeat against Iowa on May 16, 1999, in the second round of the NCAAs. Since the Eck Tennis Pavilion was built in 1988, Notre Dame has played outside at home on 27 occasions, holding a 23-4 (.852) record, with half of the losses coming in the NCAA tournament.
SALAS ESTABLISHING HERSELF AS ONE OF NATION’S TOP PLAYERS: Senior co-captain Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.), currently ranked 11th after being a career-high 10th last month, has established herself as one of the elite players in college tennis this season. She stands 23-13 in singles, including 11-7 at No. 1, having already defeated 14 ranked opponents. She has victories over #5 Amanda Johnson of Duke, #14 Jennifer McGaffigan of Illinois, #15 Luana Magnani of USC, #24 Tammy Encina of Tennessee, #29 Dianne Hollands of Arizona, #30 Dora Vastag of Indiana, #33 Alix Lacelarie of Clemson, #37 Elizabeth Exon of Michigan, #39 Megan Muth of William & Mary, #42 Jessica Rush of Northwestern, #43 Barbora Zahnova of BYU, #69 Andrea Yung of Northwestern, #79 Shana McElroy of Wisconsin, and #85 Ashley Schellhas of Vanderbilt. In addition, five more of Salas’ victories were against players that were unranked at the time of the match, but now carry national rankings. She posted wins over Ohio State’s Lindsay Williams (now 98th) and Wisconsin’s Katie McGaffigan (now 85th), Meg Racette of Iowa (now 94th), and Szilvia Szegedi of Boston College (now 101st), as well as Exon (now 89th) when she was unranked in the fall. In all, only four of Salas’ 23 victories were against players not either currently ranked or ranked at the time of the match.
Last fall, she fought through qualifying to reach the main draw of the ITA All-American Championships in October and then gained entrance to the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships the following month due to her runner-up result in the ITA Midwest Championships. She is just the fourth Notre Dame player ever to take part in the first two legs of the collegiate grand slam, joining Melissa Harris (’92), Wendy Crabtree (’96), Jennifer Hall (’99), and current Irish assistant Michelle Dasso (’01). When she moved up to 10th in the ITA national singles rankings, Salas joined those same four as the only Notre Dame players listed among the top 10 players in college tennis since the Irish moved up to the Division I level in 1985-86.
Salas has a career 94-38 (.712) record in singles and 78-38 (.672) mark in doubles. She is 12th on the Irish career singles victories list.
CLINCHING THOMPSONS: Freshman twins Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) and Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) have combined to provide the clinching victory in seven of Notre Dame’s 10 wins this season. Catrina delivered each of the first three Irish triumphs — against Ohio State, Wisconsin, and a 4-3 upset of #14 VCU — prior to clinching the 5-2 win over #26 Indiana. Christian clinched wins over Virginia Tech, Iowa, and Marquette.
SALAS/CONNELLY STRONG AT No. 2: Senior co-captain Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.) and sophomore Lauren Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) lead the Irish in doubles wins this season, with a 19-9 record, including 13-5 in dual matches at No. 2. The duo has had a season full of streaks. Salas and Connelly opened the fall 6-1 and then won seven in a row to begin the spring. After a four-match losing skid, the pair has won six of its last seven, including four straight. They are 7-2 at home and 8-3 against Midwest Region foes.
TIEBREAKER TITAN: Junior Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) is 5-0 in tiebreakers this season and has won six in a row, dating back to last year. Three of her five tiebreakers this season have been decided by 9-7 scores. Connelly lost her only match tiebreaker of 2003-04, against Ashley James of Virginia Tech, after going 5-0 in them as a sophomore.
NCAA SELECTION SHOW SET FOR MAY 5 ON ESPNEWS: The selection show for the 2004 NCAA Division I Women’s Tennis Championship is set for Wednesday, May 5 from 4-5 p.m. (EDT) (3-4 p.m. in South Bend). It will feature the announcement of the 64-team field for the NCAA team tournament, as well as the 64 singles players and 32 doubles teams gaining entry to the NCAA Singles & Doubles Championships. The first two rounds of the team championship will be played May 14-16 at campus sites, while the final four rounds will be May 20-23 in Athens, Ga. The individual tournaments are slated for May 24-29 in the same location. At 3 p.m. (EDT) on May 25, ESPN2 will feature a highlight show recapping the team championship.
STREAK BUSTERS: Notre Dame’s 4-3 victory at #14 Virginia Commonwealth on Feb. 13 snapped a pair of Rams’ streaks. Prior to the match, VCU had not lost at home in nearly five years, boasting a 40-match winning streak that stretched back to a 5-2 defeat against Virginia Tech on March 28, 1999. In addition, the Rams had won 38 consecutive regular-season contests, dating back to a 4-3 loss to William & Mary exactly two years earlier, on Feb. 13, 2002.
ANOTHER TOP-15 UPSET: Notre Dame’s 4-3 victory at #14 Virginia Commonwealth on Feb. 13 continued an impressive streak of knocking off top-15 foes. The Irish now have at least one victory over a top-15 team in each of the last 11 seasons, dating back to 1994. In ’93, Notre Dame topped #19 Clemson and #19 Alabama, but was 0-5 against teams in the top 15. During the streak, the Irish have notched 20 victories over top-15 opponents, including five in 1996, highlighted by a 5-4 upset of #5 Texas, which remains the highest-ranked team ever to be defeated by Notre Dame. VCU was the highest-ranked team to fall victim to the Irish on its own home courts since Notre Dame won at #14 William & Mary 5-2 on April 13, 2002.
TWO STARTERS FROM LAST YEAR OUT FOR THE SEASON: A pair of starters from last year’s Irish team are expected to miss all of this spring’s dual-match season with shoulder injuries. Senior co-captain Caylan Leslie (Newport Beach, Calif./Corona del Mar H.S.), who played No. 1 singles a year ago and was 26th in the preseason national rankings, had to retire in her second match of the season, at last September’s adidas Invitational, and she will not see further action in 2003-04. Leslie, who also missed the spring of 2002 with a shoulder injury, could apply for a fifth year of eligibility. Sophomore Jennifer Smith (Charlotte, N.C./South Mecklenburg H.S.), who played No. 6 singles and No. 3 doubles as a freshman, underwent shoulder surgery last fall and will miss the entire 2003-04 campaign.
IRISH FACE TOUGH SLATE: The road to the 2004 NCAA Championship is a challenging one for Notre Dame. Of the 20 dual-match opponents the Irish will face this season, 19 of them currently carry national rankings (all but Marquette), including 13 in the top 50 and 12 in the top 30. A dozen of them earned berths in last year’s NCAA tournament. Eight are currently in the top 25: #5 Duke (L, 1-6), #11 Northwestern (H, 4/15), #12 Texas (L, 2-5), #14 North Carolina (L, 0-5), #17 Illinois (L, 2-5), #20 BYU (W, 6-1), #22 Miami (W, 5-2), #23 Tennessee (L, 1-6).
SISTER ACT: For the second straight season, Notre Dame has an unprecedented two pairs of sisters on its roster in 2003-04. In 2002-03, Liz Donohue (Sioux Falls, S.D./O’Gorman H.S.) and Lauren Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) joined the Notre Dame squad as freshmen, combining with sisters Maggie Donohue and Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) to mark the first time in school history that a team featured two sets of sisters at the same time. Though Maggie Donohue graduated in ’03, the Connellys are joined this season by freshman twins Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) and Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) to give Notre Dame two sets of sisters once again. A total of six sets of sisters have earned monograms in women’s tennis, by far the most of any of the 13 Irish women’s sports.
IRISH HEAD COACH: Jay Louderback is in his 15th season at Notre Dame with a 265-132 (.669) record and his 25th year as a collegiate coach with a 469-310 (.603) mark. He ranks fifth among active NCAA Division I coaches in career victories. Louderback’s Irish have finished in the national top 30 in each of the last 11 seasons, have won 11 conference titles and registered 20 or more victories five times in the last eight campaigns. Since the preseason of the 1995 season, Louderback’s teams have been ranked in the national top 25 in 133 of 139 sets of rankings. After taking over a program looking for its first NCAA tournament appearance, Louderback has helped Notre Dame to the NCAAs 10 times in the last 11 years, including five appearances in the round of 16 and a 1996 quarterfinal finish. Louderback, a four-time Midwest Region coach of the year, has been honored as his conference’s top coach on eight occasions, including five times in eight years in the BIG EAST. In his time at Notre Dame, Louderback’s players have earned All-America honors 13 times, won three national ITA awards, and earned 18 invitations to the NCAA singles championship and 10 to the NCAA doubles tournament. His players have dominated the University awards during Louderback’s tenure, leading all sports in both Byron V. Kanaley awards (five) and Francis Patrick O’Connor awards (five). His family was honored with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Tennis Family of the Year Award for 2002. The Arkansas City, Kan., native, and 1976 graduate of Wichita State arrived at Notre Dame prior to the 1989-90 season after coaching for seven years at his alma mater and three years (men and women) at Iowa State.
FORMER NATIONAL No. 1 BROOK BUCK HEADED FOR NOTRE DAME: Head coach Jay Louderback announced recently that Brook Buck (Yukon, Okla./Oklahoma Christian School) has signed a national letter of intent to enroll at Notre Dame and join his team in the fall of 2004. Buck, a three-time Oklahoma state singles champion, was ranked No. 1 in the United States Tennis Association (USTA) girls’ 16-and-under national rankings in January of this year before moving up to the 18-and-under age group. She had an outstanding year of 16s junior action in 2002. In addition to being the singles runner-up at the National Hardcourt Championships, she won three national doubles titles, claiming crowns in the Winter National Championships, the Spring Supernational Championships, and the Supernational Hardcourt Championships. A senior at Oklahoma Christian School, Buck won state No. 1 singles titles in class 3A in 2001, ’02, and ’03, and will go for another next spring. Despite only playing in the 18-and-under division since April of this year, Buck has earned a national ranking of 28th, which places her currently as the 10th-highest-ranked player who will enroll in college next fall.
KEEPING UP WITH NOTRE DAME TENNIS: For the fastest results of Notre Dame tennis matches, call the Notre Dame sports hotline at (574) 631-3000 and choose #8. The hotline provides schedule and results information for varsity sports and serves as a supplement to the game recaps and weekly releases provided on the official athletic website at www.und.com. The hotline is the first medium updated with the results of each Notre Dame tennis match. In addition, media members and fans may be added to the sports information e-mail release list by contacting Bo Rottenborn at Rottenborn.2@nd.edu, or Eileen Carroll at ecarroll@nd.edu, who also can provide any information about the Irish tennis program.