Host Virginia women eye title at ITA National Team Indoors

Only the NCAA Tournament looms larger in women’s college tennis than the event that will take place this weekend at the Boars Head Sports Club. 

Sixteen of the nation’s top women’s tennis teams will compete for the second-most important team trophy of the 2012 season at the ITA National Team Indoors. This will be the second year in a row that Virginia has played host to the event and the Cavaliers are hopeful that 2012 may be their year to make a run at the title. 

In a bizarre twist, the teams that finished first and second in last year’s tournament and are currently ranked No. 1 and No. 2 nationally this season are not in attendance. Both Stanford, last year’s champion, and Florida, last year’s runner-up, chose not to compete in the ITA indoors this year and are instead playing a dual match against one another in Palo Alto, Calif., on Sunday. That means that No. 3 Duke will be the top seed in this weekend’s event and No. 9 Virginia will slide up to the No. 7 seed in the tournament.

Even without the top two teams in the nation in attendance, the tournament will showcase some of the best college players in America, including Georgia’s Chelsey Gullickson, Cal’s Jana Juricova, Duke freshman Beatrice Capra and UCLA freshman Robin Anderson. All four are ranked in the top 10 among women’s college tennis players. The UVa team is overflowing with ranked players with six ranked singles players and two ranked doubles teams. Only two other teams, California and Duke, feature as many as six ranked singles players. UVa seniors Emily Fraser and Lindsey Hardenbergh lead the Cavalier rankings, coming in at 29 and 30, respectively.

“I think this is a great opportunity for us to show what we have been working for. Hopefully, the end result will be a national indoor title, but first we have to deal with Northwestern,” said UVa junior Hana Tomljanovic. 

Virginia opens play in the event against Northwestern, a team that the Cavaliers defeated last year in this same tournament, on Friday at 6:30 p.m. 

Tomljanovic, reflecting on the upcoming encounter with Northwestern, said: “I definitely think that they will be stronger than they were last year but so are we.  Two of their girls weren’t available for last year’s match who will be playing this year. We will have to be ready to play, but we are strong all the way through the lineup and match up well with Northwestern.” 

If the Cavaliers get past Northwestern, the powerful No. 2-seeded UCLA Bruins await them in the quarterfinal round to be played on Saturday.