Feb. 20, 2002
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 20th-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team will try to put together a winning streak this weekend when it plays host to #48 Iowa and #75 Virginia Tech in the Eck Tennis Pavilion. The Irish and Hawkeyes will face each other Friday at 3:30 p.m., while Notre Dame and the Hokies will play on Sunday at 9 a.m.
LAST WEEK’S ACTION: Notre Dame split a pair of home matches last weekend. On Saturday, the Irish lost 6-1 to eighth-ranked Tennessee. The Lady Volunteers won the doubles point and five of the six singles matches to gain the win. The lone Irish point came from a victory by sophomore Alicia Salas (Engelwood, Colo.), who notched a 6-4, 7-5 upset victory over #77 Agnes Wiski at No. 4 singles. Wiski is the highest-ranked opponent defeated by Salas in her career. Salas and freshman Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla.) provided the only other Irish victory, registering an 8-3 win at No. 3 doubles.
Notre Dame snapped its three-match losing streak by defeating BYU 5-2 on Monday. The Irish swept the doubles point for the third time this season and then won four of six singles matches to claim the victory. Salas, Connelly, and seniors Becky Varnum (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Nina Vaughan (Corona del Mar, Calif.) all registered triumphs in both singles and doubles.
IRISH vs. HAWKEYES: Iowa is ranked 1-4 and ranked 48th nationally this season, after entering the season ranked 42nd. The Hawkeyes’ victory came last weekend over Marquette. They will play two matches in the Eck Tennis Pavilion this weekend, also facing Virginia Tech Saturday at 3 p.m. Iowa and Notre Dame have faced one common opponent this season, Vanderbilt. Notre Dame fell 5-2 to the Commodores in the quarterfinals of the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships earlier this month, while Iowa was shutout 7-0 by Vanderbilt in its season opener.
Last season, the Hawkeyes were 12-10, finished the season ranked 44th, and lost to North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Iowa was ranked as high as 28th in the nation in 2001.
The Irish and Hawkeyes will meet for the fourth consecutive season and eighth time overall. Notre Dame has won all but one of the previous seven meetings. The only Iowa win over the Irish came in the second round of the 1999 NCAA tournament when the Hawkeyes registered a 5-4 upset victory at the Courtney Tennis Center. Notre Dame is 4-1 against Iowa in the Jay Louderback era with all five matches occurring at home. The teams first met in 1985. In 2001, the Irish defeated Iowa 6-1. Notre Dame swept the doubles matches and won each of the top five singles matches to gain the win.
IRISH vs. HOKIES: Virginia Tech enters this weekend with a 6-2 record and a No. 75 national ranking. The Hokies were ranked 75th heading into the season. Their two losses were 6-1 decisions to Ohio State and Virginia. Virginia Tech has a busy weekend, as it travels to Wake Forest on Thursday for a 4 p.m. match before coming to Notre Dame, where it will play against Iowa Saturday at 10 a.m. and against the Irish Sunday at 9 a.m.
Last season, Virginia Tech was 12-12 and ranked as high as 53rd before falling out of the rankings. The Hokies advanced to the semifinals of the BIG EAST tournament before falling to Notre Dame.
The Irish and Hokies had never met prior to last season, but will now face off for the third time in just over a year. Virginia Tech traveled to Notre Dame last February for the first-ever meeting between the teams. The Irish won the doubles point and all six singles matches for a 7-0 victory. Virginia Tech did notch a win at No. 2 doubles. The squads met again in the semifinals of the BIG EAST tournament with Notre Dame gaining a 4-0 victory, though the Hokies won the first set in abandoned matches at Nos. 5 and 6.
A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME: The doubles point has been a good indicator of Irish success recently. This season, Notre Dame is 5-0 when winning the doubles point and 0-5 when losing it. Dating back to last season, Notre Dame has gone on to win the match each of the last 18 times the Irish have captured the doubles point. The last time Notre Dame won the doubles point, but lost the match was March 1, 2001, when they dropped each of the bottom four singles matches to lose a 4-3 road decision to Northwestern.
HOMELAND SECURITY: Notre Dame is in the midst of a six-match home stretch, in which the Irish play a pair of home matches in each of three straight weekends. Thus far this season, the Irish have played just one match on the road (along with six at home and three in the team indoor championships). After this homestand, Notre Dame will have just three home matches in its final 11. Earlier this season, the Irish dropped three straight matches at home, marking a first since 1992. The loss to Kentucky on Feb. 2 snapped a 12-match home winning streak. Nonetheless, the Irish have won 29 of the past 33 home regular-season matches. Over the past five seasons, Notre Dame is 44-8 (.846) at home. In the Jay Louderback era, the Irish are 112-26 (.812) in the friendly confines of the Courtney Tennis Center and Eck Tennis Pavilion.
AMONG THE NATION’S ELITE: The Irish are ranked 20th in the most recent Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings. Notre Dame has now been ranked in the national top 20 in 72 consecutive sets of rankings released by the ITA. After finishing the previous season 21st, the Irish earned a preseason ranking of 16th in the fall of 1997 and have been in the top 20 since then, peaking at a school-record No. 5 midway through last season. Notre Dame has been ranked in the top 20 in 138 of the last 140 polls, dating back to fall 1995.
SUPER SALAS: After not being a regular part of the Irish lineup a season ago, sophomore Alicia Salas (Engelwood, Colo.) has had an outstanding start to 2002. She leads the team in both singles victories and doubles victories and has posted a perfect 10-0 mark in dual singles matches, as well as a 7-3 doubles record in dual matches. Salas is 13-0 in her career in singles matches. This season she is 17-3 in singles and has won each of her last 13 matches, as well as 16 of her last 17. Last week, Salas defeated 77th-ranked Agnes Wiski of Tennessee, marking the highest-ranked opponent she has beaten in her career. In doubles, she and senior Nina Vaughan (Corona del Mar, Calif.) notched an upset victory over Kentucky’s 27th-ranked team of Jill Buckley and Amy Trefethen 8-4 earlier this year. Salas has been particularly dominant at home this season. She is 10-0 in singles and 8-1 in doubles in the Eck Tennis Pavilion. In six of her 10 home singles matches this season, Salas has held the opponent to three games or fewer, including each of her first five matches in the Eck Tennis Pavilion. Last year as a freshman, she lost her first match in the Eck Tennis Pavilion, but has since won all 15 singles matches she has played at home.
IRISH FACE TOUGH SLATE: The Irish are facing a difficult schedule in 2002, having recently completed a stretch of four consecutive matches against top-15 teams. Six of the teams currently ranked in the national top 10 are on Notre Dame’s schedule and 12 Irish opponents are ranked in the top 30. Of the 24 teams on the schedule, 21 are currently ranked. Fifteen of those teams participated in the NCAA tournament a year ago, including six squads that advanced to the round of 16. Notre Dame will end this season with a number of difficult challenges, as the final seven teams on the regular-season schedule are all currently ranked in the top 25 and four are in the top 10. That stretch consists of matches at #6 Wake Forest (March 30), at #4 Duke (April 1), at #10 North Carolina (April 2), home vs. #13 Northwestern (April 6), home vs. #25 Miami (April 7), at #19 William & Mary (April 13) and at #9 Texas (April 15).
KEEPING UP WITH NOTRE DAME TENNIS: For the fastest results of Notre Dame tennis matches, call the Notre Dame sports information hotline at (219) 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 may be added to the sports information e-mail release list by contacting Bo Rottenborn at Rottenborn.2@nd.edu.