The women:
When the NCAA
Tournament kicks off on Friday, the women’s tennis team will be looking to erase
the memory of its first four-loss season in two decades. Seeded fourth, the
Cardinal was ousted in last year’s semifinals after winning the last three
straight titles, and five of the last six. Stanford will start its quest for a
14th national title against Boston University at the Taube Tennis Center Friday
afternoon.
The Cardinal joins No. 1 Northwestern, No. 2 Georgia
and No. 3 Georgia Tech as the women’s top seeds. Georgia Tech won the title last
season, defeating UCLA in the championship.
After struggling in the middle of the season, with
three February losses, the Cardinal women (19-4, 7-1 Pac-10) finished the
regular season with seven straight victories, with their last dual-match loss at
Arizona State. Over that stretch, Stanford shut out three opponents and beat
three top-ten teams. The Cardinal tied with UCLA for the Pac-10 Title.
Freshman Hilary Barte is the third-ranked individual in
the nation and is a perfect 17-0 at No. 1 singles on the season, with an overall
record of 27-6. Though she pulled out of the Pac-10 Championships in the singles
quarterfinals with an injury, she is projected to play at No. 1 singles this
weekend.
Boston University (11-7, 2-0 America East) closed out
its regular season with its 15th-straight America East Conference title and has
won its last four dual matches. Francine Whu led the Terriers to victory and
earned the Most Outstanding Performer award at the America East
Tournament.
The last time Stanford hosted Boston University in the
NCAA Tournament was in 2001, when the Cardinal shut out the Terriers to start a
postseason run that ended with a national title.
The winner of Friday’s match will advance to face
either No. 31 Texas A&M or No. 38 Washington in Saturday’s second round,
also at Taube Tennis Center. The Cardinal swept the Huskies, 7-0, in Seattle in
February. Stanford has only faced the Aggies once in program history, winning
5-1 in 1998.
The men:
On the men’s side,
the Cardinal will face UC-Santa Barbara in the first round, with a likely
second-round matchup against No. 13 Pepperdine on the Waves’ homecourt. The No.
22 Stanford men return after a year out of the Tournament.
The Stanford men (12-8, 5-2 Pac-10) have bounced back from four
straight losses to open the dual-match season, and finished on a four-match
winning streak. Playing at Pepperdine, the Cardinal will start things off with
the No. 58 Gauchos (15-9, 4-1 Big West) on Friday. The winner will face either
the host Waves or Hawaii on Saturday.
UCSB won its third straight Big West title despite
dropping its last two non-conference duals of the season. It has been
nearly 20 years since the Cardinal and Gauchos last played, and Stanford has won
six of seven matches all-time. Stanford lost to Pepperdine by one point in their
last meeting last April, but has recorded two wins over the Rainbow Warriors
already in 2008.
Still to come:
After the opening weekend, the University of Tulsa will
host both the men’s and the women’s finals, with the champions to be determined
on May 20. Tulsa will also host the individual tournaments the next week.
Following the team championships, four players will
represent Stanford in the singles and doubles draws. Barte, who had been
undefeated for over two months before pulling her withdrawl from the Pac-10
Tournament, earned a place in the singles tournament as well as in the doubles
draw, with her partner sophomore Lindsay Burdette. Together the pair is ranked
ninth in the nation.
Junior Jessica Nguyen was also picked for the singles
draw, while senior Celia Durkin was tabbed an alternate. Freshman Alex Clayton,
ranked seventh in the nation as an individual, will play in the men’s singles
tournament.
Are you fully subscribed to The Bootleg? If not, then you are missing out
on all the top Cardinal coverage we provide daily on our website, as well as our
full-length feature articles in our glossy magazine. Sign up today for the
biggest and best in Stanford sports coverage with TheBootleg.com (sign-up) and
The Bootleg Magazine (sign-up)!