May 5, 2004
2004 Division I Women’s Tennis Bracket in PDF Format
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The 29th-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team (11-11) earned an at-large bid and one of the 17-32 seeds in the 2004 NCAA Division I Championship when the field was announced Wednesday afternoon. The Irish will travel to Evanston, Ill. for the second time in three years for first- and second-round action at the Vandy Christie Tennis Center on the campus of Northwestern University. The Irish will open play on Saturday, May 15 at 10 a.m. (CDT) against #38 Iowa (14-9). The host Wildcats (23-4), ranked ninth and the 10th overall seed in the tournament, will take on Illinois-Chicago (12-7) at 2 p.m. that day, while the winners will play in the second round on Sunday, May 16 at Noon.
Notre Dame and Iowa earned at-large berths to the NCAA tournament, while Northwestern and the Flames gained entrance through automatic bids obtained via winning the Big Ten Conference and Horizon League championships, respectively.
The winner of the second-round contest will advance to Athens, Ga. for the final four rounds of competition, slated for May 20-23.
Iowa, one of the 33-48 seeds, tied for sixth in the Big Ten in regular-season play with a 6-5 record, but then upset second-seeded #21 Indiana before losing 4-3 to Ohio State in the semifinals of the conference tournament. Northwestern won the regular-season league title with a 9-1 record and then won its sixth consecutive Big Ten tourney championship by topping the Buckeyes in the final. Illinois-Chicago, one of the 49-64 seeds, was unbeaten in seven league matches during the season to take the Horizon League title, and the Flames then won their eighth consecutive conference title to gain the automatic bid.
Notre Dame played both the Hawkeyes and Wildcats at home during the regular season, topping Iowa 6-1 on March 18 and falling 4-3 to Northwestern on April 15 after losing a third-set tiebreaker at No. 4 singles.
The Irish and Hawkeyes will meet for the second time in the NCAA tournament, as Iowa pulled off a 5-4 upset of host Notre Dame in the second round of the ’99 championship. The teams have met on nine occasions in the regular season, with the Irish winning every time.
Northwestern is the most common opponent in the history of Notre Dame’s varsity program, with the teams meeting on 25 occasions. The ‘Cats have won 17 of those matches, including each of the last four — though three of them were by 4-3 scores. The only previous NCAA matchup was a 6-2 Irish victory in 1998.
Notre Dame has won all seven meetings with UIC, including two in the first round of the NCAA tournament at the Courtney Tennis Center: 1999 and 2000.
Five singles players and three doubles teams listed in the national rankings will be at the Northwestern subregional: #3 Cristelle Grier of Northwestern, #22 Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.) of Notre Dame, #44 Jessica Rush of Northwestern, #104 Beatriz Cabrera of Illinois-Chicago, #110 Meg Racette of Iowa, #3 Grier/Rush, #36 Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.)/Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) of Notre Dame, and #60 Hilary Mintz/Racette.
Of the 20 teams on Notre Dame’s regular-season schedule, 15 of them earned berths in the NCAA Championship: Duke (No. 7 overall seed), Northwestern, Texas (No. 13 seed), North Carolina (No. 14 seed), BYU, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Miami, Michigan, Ohio State, Tennessee, Wake Forest, William & Mary, and Wisconsin. The Irish were 6-10 against those teams, while also notching a 4-3 exhibition win last fall over USC (No. 8 seed).
The Irish have appeared in 11 of the last 12 NCAA tounaments, reaching the round of 16 on five occasions and the 1996 quarterfinals. A year ago, Notre Dame beat Missouri in the first round before losing to #15 Vanderbilt on the Commodores’ home courts. The Irish also took part in NCAA Championship action at Northwestern in 2002, losing 4-2 to Wisconsin in the opening round.
For the fifth consecutive year, the NCAA Championship features a field of 64 teams, consisting of 31 automatic-qualifying conference champions and 33 at-large selections. The first and second rounds will take place May 14-16 at 16 campus sites, while the final four rounds will be May 20-23 in Athens, Ga.
The draws for the NCAA Singles & Doubles Championships will be released Thursday on www.ncaasports.com. They will take place May 24-29 in Athens, with 64 singles players and 32 doubles teams competing. Since 1989, Notre Dame competitors have garnered 18 invitations to the national singles tournament and 10 to the doubles event.
There will be televised coverage of the NCAA Championships, as ESPN2 will air a tape-delayed show on the team tournament on May 25 at 2 p.m. EST. Additionally, the Tennis Channel will show the singles and doubles finals in a program first airing June 4 at 6 p.m. EST.