The University of Mississippi Athletics
Women's Tennis To Face Tulane This Weekend
2/19/2004 | Women's Tennis
Feb. 19, 2004
OXFORD, Miss. - The 31st-ranked Ole Miss women's tennis team will head to New Orleans this weekend to face 27th-ranked Tulane. The match is slated for 1 p.m., at the Goldring Tennis Center on the campus of Tulane.
The Lady Rebels (6-1) suffered their first loss of the season last weekend, 4-2, to 35th-ranked Baylor. The match, scheduled to be played in Waco, had to be moved north to the Colonial Country Club in Ft. Worth due to inclement weather. Senior Florencia Basile remained undefeated (7-0) in dual matches with her win at No. 5 singles. Basile has won eight of her last nine dating back to the fall.
Tulane enters the match with a 5-0 record. The 2003 Conference USA Champion, Tulane is coming off a 4-3 win over TCU on Sunday. The Green Wave are led by four nationally-ranked players. Sophomore All-American Julie Smekodub is ranked No. 10 in the nation, while junior Maria Ivanov, the 2003 C-USA Player of the Year, is ranked No. 47. Sophomore All-American Jenny Kuhn is ranked No. 55 in singles and teams up with Smekodub for a No. 9 ranking in doubles. Sophomore Erika Valdes is ranked 71st by the ITA.
"This will be a difficult match for us on the road," head coach Mark Beyers said. "Tulane has a very good team, with several nationally-ranked players. Last year's match in Oxford went down to the wire. We should have won, but we couldn't close them out when we had chances. Hopefully we can play well and get back on the winning side before the start of conference play next weekend."
This will be the second consecutive meeting between Ole Miss and Tulane. The two teams battled to an exciting finish in last year's meeting, with Tulane edging the Lady Rebels 4-3. The Lady Rebels won the doubles point by knocking off Smekodub and Kuhn, who were ranked No. 1 at the time, at the top spot. Tulane gained a 2-1 advantage after winning at Nos. 2 and 3 singles. The Green Wave increased their lead to 3-1 when Smekodub rallied at No. 1 singles against two-time All-American Mira Walker (now the Lady Rebels' volunteer coach). Ole Miss won at Nos. 4 and 5 singles to even the match. The Lady Rebels had match points at No. 6 singles, but Tulane would hold off and go on to win the match for the final 4-3 score.
Following this match, the Lady Rebels will return home to host No. 6 Vanderbilt and No. 12 Kentucky in the opening weekend of SEC play.
