Feb. 5, 2002
MADISON, Wisc. – The 13th-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s tennis team will travel to Madison, Wisc. this week to take part in the United States Tennis Association/Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Team Indoor Championships at the A.C. Nielsen Tennis Stadium. The Irish, appearing in the tournament for the ninth consecutive season, are scheduled to open play Thursday at 9 a.m., taking on 7th-ranked USC. It will mark the third time in the last four years the two teams have met in the National Team Indoor Championships. If the Irish win, they will take on the winner of the match between #4 Vanderbilt and 17th-ranked Northwestern Friday at 3:30 p.m. Notre Dame is guaranteed to play matches on Friday and Saturday and will advance to Sunday’s final if the Irish win each of their first three contests.
LAST WEEK’S ACTION: The Irish suffered their first two losses of the season last weekend, dropping a pair of matches at the Eck Tennis Pavilion. It marked the first time since 1997 the Irish have lost back-to-back matches at home.
On Saturday, Notre Dame lost 4-3 to #24 Kentucky. The Wildcats, sporting three ranked doubles teams, took the doubles point and then the first three singles matches off the court to clinch the match before the Irish got on the board. Notre Dame rallied to win the final three matches. The Irish had chances to win, though, as the doubles was clinched when Kentucky broke serve in the final game at No. 1 to gain an 8-6 win. In singles, all six matches were tight, combining for a total of eight sets decided either in tiebreakers or by 7-5 scores, including at least one in each match. Winning for the Irish were senior Nina Vaughan (Corona del Mar, Calif.) at No. 3 singles, junior Katie Cunha (Mercer Island, Wash.) at No. 4 and sophomore Alicia Salas (Engelwood, Colo.) at No. 5. Vaughan and Salas also won at No. 3 doubles.
On Sunday, 40th-ranked Indiana snapped a six-match losing skid against Notre Dame with a 5-2 win. The Hoosiers took the doubles point and then won four close singles matches to post their sixth win in as many matches in 2002. In the four Indiana singles wins, there were five sets decided either in a tiebreaker or by 7-5 scores, including at least one in each match. Gaining definitive singles wins for the Irish were Salas, as well as freshman Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla.), playing No. 6. In doubles, seniors Lindsey Green (El Cajon, Calif.) and Becky Varnum (Colorado Springs, Colo.), ranked 29th, defeated the 30th-ranked team in the nation at No. 1 doubles.
NATIONAL TEAM INDOORS: The National Team Indoor Championships is the premier national team indoor tournament. It features 16 of the top teams in the country and has been held each year since 1988. The Irish will compete for the ninth consecutive season. Stanford has won a record six national indoor titles, including in each of the past two years. Six teams on Notre Dame?s 2002 dual-match schedule are in the field: Duke, North Carolina, Northwestern, Tennessee, Wake Forest and host Wisconsin. Also making the tournament is Southern California, which the Irish faced in an exhibition match in October. Rounding out the field are Baylor, Fresno State, Georgia, Old Dominion, Oklahoma State, NCAA champion Stanford, NCAA finalist Vanderbilt and Washington. The Irish, who finished in a fifth-place tie last season, have compiled an 11-13 record, highlighted by quarterfinal finishes in 1994 and 2001. Fourteen of the 16 teams are ranked in the top 21 of the current ITA national rankings and the field includes six of the top seven teams nationally. The field also includes a number of outstanding individual performers. Four of the top five singles players in the national rankings will be present, as well as 14 of the top 20. Also, six of the top seven and nine of the top 12 doubles teams will be in action.
IRISH vs. TROJANS: Notre Dame and USC will meet in the first-round of the championships, on Thursday at 9 a.m. It will be the third official all-time meeting between the Irish and the Trojans, all coming in the last four years in the Team Indoor Championships. In 1999, the Irish defeated USC 5-3, but a year later the Trojans won 5-2. The two teams have met a number of times in fall exhibition matches over the years, including this past fall in the Eck Tennis Pavilion. USC won the match 5-2, gaining the doubles point and wins at Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 singles. The Irish got singles victories from Becky Varnum (Colorado Springs, Colo.) at No. 1 and Alicia Salas (Engelwood, Colo.) at No. 6, as well as a doubles win from Caylan Leslie (Newport Beach, Calif.) and Nina Vaughan (Corona del Mar, Calif.) at No. 3. Varnum’s win was a 6-1, 6-3 decision over then-#15 Jewel Peterson.
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 combined victories and has posted a perfect 5-0 mark in dual singles matches, as well as a 4-1 doubles record in dual matches. Salas is 8-0 in her career in singles matches. This season she is 12-3 in singles and has won each of her last eight matches, as well as 11 of her last 12. In doubles, she and senior Nina Vaughan (Corona del Mar, Calif.) upset Kentucky’s 27th-ranked team of Jill Buckley and Amy Trefethen 8-4 last weekend.
FABULOUS FROSH: Freshman Sarah Jane Connelly (Oklahoma City, Okla.) has hit the college tennis scene with a splash. She led the Irish in singles victories in the fall and has achieved a national ranking of 53 in doubles. She advanced through qualifying at the Omni Hotels Region IV Championships and won her first two singles matches in the dual-match season.
CRANKING CUNHA: After starting the season with four straight singles losses, junior Katie Cunha (Mercer Island, Wash.) has won 10 of her last 12 matches, including advancing to the round of 16 in last fall’s Omni Hotels Region IV Championships, as well as posting a 4-1 singles record in dual matches. After not registering a match-clinching victory all of last season, Cunha has been responsible for the clincher in each of the three Irish wins in 2002. She provided the deciding victory at No. 4 singles vs. Illinois State, Northern Iowa and Michigan. In addition, she defeated 92nd-ranked Amy Trefethen of Kentucky 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-1 last weekend at No. 4 singles — the first in her career over a ranked opponent.
DYNAMITE DEBUT: Senior Michelle Hamilton (Diamond Bar, Calif.) and junior Maggie Donohue (Sioux Falls, S.D.) teamed up at No. 3 doubles vs. Northern Iowa and notched an 8-3 victory to clinch the doubles point for Notre Dame. The match marked the dual-match debut for both players.
IT TAKES TWO, BABY: Seniors Becky Varnum (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Lindsey Green (El Cajon, Calif.) each have an opportunity to break the Notre Dame school record for career doubles victories. Varnum has 94 wins and Green has 93, putting them 15 and 16 shy of 2001 graduate Michelle Dasso’s 109. Varnum set the school record last year for doubles wins in a season with 37.