Sept. 28, 2011
SEATTLE - The Husky women's tennis team navigated one of the nation's toughest schedules a year ago en route to a fourth-straight NCAA tournament appearance. The docket for the upcoming season assembled by Head Coach Jill Hultquist is no less challenging, but the team will get to spend more time on its home courts this season. Last season UW spent the large majority of its time on the road, with just six home dates. This season the Huskies will be home for ten matches, with at least nine on the road. Of the nineteen dual matches on the spring schedule, Washington will face thirteen teams that qualified for the NCAA Team Championships a year ago. The fall season is just around the corner. Senior All-American Denise Dy will begin her year at the ITA All-America Championships on October 6 in Pacific Palisades, California. The rest of the team will compete for the first time at ITA Northwest Regionals, hosted by Stanford starting October 21. Additional fall tournaments the Huskies will travel to include the Palm Springs Invitational, Nov. 4-6, and the Fresno State Bulldog Classic on Nov. 11-13. Once the calendar turns over, the Dawgs will head to the Michigan Invitational for the third consecutive season, where they have faced some of the top teams in the country in individual play the past two years. The first dual match will come at home, as the Huskies host Sacramento State on January 20 at the Nordstrom Tennis Center. Washington heads straight from the opener into the ITA National Team Indoor Qualifying rounds at Berkeley, where they will play San Diego in the first round on Jan. 27, then either California or UNLV on Jan. 28. Last season, the Huskies knocked off Texas and Florida State in qualifying to make the National Team Indoor final site for the first time since 2005. If the Huskies again qualify, then Virginia hosts the final sixteen teams from Feb. 10-13. There will also be a non-conference trip in early February to Minneapolis to face William & Mary and Minnesota. Then the Huskies host six straight home matches starting with Portland on Feb. 18 and 2011 NCAA tourney team Texas A&M on Feb. 19. Pac-12 play begins March 4 at home against Stanford. New conference additions Colorado and Utah will be visiting Seattle on April 6 and 7, respectively. The regular season ends with a home match against Oregon on April 22. For the first time ever, the Pac-12 title will be decided with a team tournament in place of the singles and doubles championships of years past. Ojai, California will still serve as host for the tourney, which runs from April 26-29. The NCAA Championships begin in May, and the host site this year is the University of Georgia in Athens. |
