Sept. 16, 2004
Sophomore twins Christian Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) and Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman H.S.) were listed seventh in the preseason edition of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) national doubles rankings, released last week. The career-high listing makes them one of only four Notre Dame doubles teams ever to be ranked among the nation’s top seven. Catrina Thompson was the lone Irish player in the singles rankings, checking in at 103rd.
The sisters are coming off a year in which they became the first all-freshman doubles team from any Division I school since 1998 to garner an invitation to the NCAA Doubles Championship. They reached the round of 16 before falling in three sets to end the season with a 22-17 record and #26 national ranking, the highest of any pair of freshmen. The Thompsons played No. 1 all season, going 12-11, including an upset of the nation’s #2 team, Cristelle Grier and Jessica Rush of Northwestern. They were the first all-rookie doubles team to play a match at No. 1 for Notre Dame since 1993 and were the lone all-freshman pair to regularly play at the top spot in the 15-year Jay Louderback era.
The ranking matches the highest-ever preseason listing for a Notre Dame team, as current assistant coach Michelle Dasso and Becky Varnum were seventh to begin the 2000-01 campaign. The Thompsons are just the fourth Irish doubles team to be ranked among the nation’s top seven. Dasso and Varnum peaked at fifth in 2000-01, while Dasso and Jennifer Hall were sixth during the 1998-99 campaign and Hall and Tiffany Gates were as high as seventh in 1996-97.
The Thompsons played a pair of the teams ranked ahead of them during the 2003-04 season. Amy Wei and Megan Muth of William & Mary, the preseason #2 team, eliminated the Notre Dame duo from the NCAA doubles tournament last spring, while North Carolina’s Kendall Cline and Aniela Mojzis, ranked fourth to start this season, had a win against the Thompsons in the regular season. Arizona’s team of Maja Mlakar and Dianne Hollands are the preseason #1 squad, while Kentucky’s Aibika Kalsarieva and Sarah Foster are third, Lucia Tallo and Jelena Pandzic of Fresno State are fifth, and Alabama’s duo of Ashley Bentley and Robin Stephenson are sixth. Two other Midwest Region teams are directly behind the Irish: Michelle DaCosta and Kara Delicata of Michigan at eighth and Northwestern’s Cristelle Grier and Alexis Prousis at ninth.
Catrina Thompson finished her rookie campaign with a 20-15 record in singles, including 12-10 in dual matches at No. 3. She was ranked briefly during the spring, peaking at 84th. Thompson is 11th among region competitors in the preseason national listing. Only one BIG EAST player, Boston College’s Szilvia Szegedi (84th), is ranked ahead of Thompson.
The Thompson twins and the rest of the Irish, which return six players who have been regular starters in at least one of the last two seasons, begin the 2004-05 campaign this weekend at the Colorado Invitational.