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Notre Dame Tops Iowa To Move Into NCAA Second Round

May 15, 2004

EVANSTON, Ill. – For the 10th time in 11 appearances, the University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team opened the NCAA Division I Championship with a victory, as the 29th-ranked Irish, one of the tournament’s No. 17-32 seeds, registered a 4-1 victory over #38 Iowa Saturday morning at the Vandy Christie Tennis Center on the campus of Northwestern University. Notre Dame will face the host Wildcats, ranked ninth and seeded 10th, in second-round play on Sunday at noon (CDT). Northwestern won a third-set tiebreaker to edge the Irish 4-3 during the regular season. Once again, in-match updates will be available at the top and bottom of every hour, and more frequently if the action merits it, via the Notre Dame Sports Hotline, which can be accessed at 574-631-3000 and then by pressing #8 for tennis and #2 for women’s tennis.

Notre Dame won the doubles point and got straight-set wins at the top three singles positions to beat Iowa for the second time this season. The Irish took the bottom two doubles matches to claim the initial point. First off the court was the team of senior Emily Neighbours (Indianapolis, Ind./Park Tudor School) and junior Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.), who won five consecutive games to complete an 8-3 triumph over Chelsea Glynn and Hilary Tyler at No. 3.

The pair of senior co-captain Alicia Salas (Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek H.S.) and sophomore Lauren Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla./Bishop McGuinness H.S.) continued its hot play, clinching the doubles point with an 8-5 victory over Bulgarian Deni Alexandrova and Russian Anastasia Zhukova at No. 2. The Irish duo has won eight in a row and is 23-7 on the season, including 17-5 in dual matches.

Notre Dame freshman twins Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) and Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.), ranked 36th, were leading 6-4 at No. 1 against the 60th-ranked team of freshmen Hillary Mintz and Meg Racette. It was a contest between the only two all-freshman doubles teams in the current national rankings.

Alexandrova was the first victor off the court in singles, tying the team score at 1-1 with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over sophomore Kristina Stastny (St. Louis, Mo./St. Joseph’s Academy) at No. 5. The Bulgarian has won five in a row.

The Thompson twins then delivered straight-set singles wins to put the Irish within a point of triumph. Catrina finished first with a 6-4, 6-0 victory against Glynn at No. 3. The match was tied 4-4 in the first set before Thompson won eight consecutive games to put the Irish up 2-1. She is 20-14 this season, including 12-9 in dual matches at No. 3. Thompson beat Glynn 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) during the regular season.

Christian Thompson was next to deliver a victory, beating Mintz 6-3, 6-4 at No. 2 after taking three sets to defeat her in March. The Irish freshman has won seven of her last eight matches and stands 25-13 on the season, leading the team in singles wins. Thompson is 13-8 in dual action at No. 2.

Salas, ranked 22nd in the nation, snapped a six-match losing streak in defeating #110 Racette 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 to clinch Notre Dame’s victory. The Irish senior, who improved to 15-11 against ranked opponents this season, had struggled since the last time she beat the Hawkeye freshman (6-4, 6-1 on March 18), winning just once in 10 matches (one was abandoned), though six of the defeats came against top-30 opponents. Salas is 24-16 on the season and 12-10 at No. 1. Due in large part to her penchant for quick triumphs, the clinching victory was just the fourth of Salas’ career (second of the spring), which has seen her post a 52-24 (.684) singles record in dual matches.

At No. 4, Zhukova won the first set and was tied 5-5 with Lauren Connelly in the second when Salas clinched the team victory and forced all other matches to be abandoned.

Thanks to a comeback from Sarah Jane Connelly, the No. 6 match was in a third set. Tyler won the opening frame 6-3 and was up 3-0 in the second before the Irish junior rallied to win the set 6-4. Connelly, who has rallied to win after dropping the first set 13 times throughout her career, led 3-2, on serve, in the third when the match was abandoned.

Notre Dame leads the all-time series with Iowa 10-1, but the Hawkeyes had taken the only previous meeting in the NCAA tournament, a 5-4 decision at the Courtney Tennis Center in 1999.

Northwestern moved into the second round by beating Illinois-Chicago 4-0 in the day’s second match at the Christie Tennis Center.

Notre Dame and the Wildcats will meet for the second time in the NCAAs. The Irish won the first match 6-2 in the first round of the Midwest Regional in 1998 in Champaign, Ill.

Sunday’s winner will advance to face #4 Duke, the tournament’s No. 7 seed, in the round of 16 on May 20 at 3 p.m. (EDT) at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga. The Blue Devils beat Furman and William & Mary by identical 4-0 scores in the first two rounds.

The Irish avoided the upset plague in first round matches involving No. 17-32 seeds in this year’s NCAA tournament. Only seven of those 16 teams survived their first-round matchups with No. 33-48 seeds.

[17-32] #29 Notre Dame 4, [33-48] #38 Iowa 1

Singles

No. 1 *#22 Alicia Salas (ND) d. #110 Meg Racette (I) 7-6 (7-4), 6-4

No. 2 Christian Thompson (ND) d. Hillary Mintz (I) 6-3, 6-4

No. 3 Catrina Thompson (ND) d. Chelsea Glynn (I) 6-4, 6-0

No. 4 Anastasia Zhukova (I) led Lauren Connelly (ND) 6-3, 5-5, abandoned

No. 5 Deni Alexandrova (I) d. Kristina Stastny (ND) 6-2, 6-2

No. 6 Sarah Jane Connelly (ND) led Hilary Tyler (I) 3-6, 6-4, 3-2, abandoned

Order of finish: 5, 3, 2, 1*

Doubles

No. 1 #36 Thompson/Thompson (ND) led #60 Mintz/Racette (I) 6-4, abandoned

No. 2 L. Connelly/Salas (ND) d. Alexandrova/Zhukova (I) 8-5

No. 3 S.J. Connelly/Emily Neighbours (ND) d. Glynn/Tyler (I) 8-3

Order of finish: 3, 2*