Feb. 25, 2011
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The Texas A&M women's tennis team will be gunning for its fourth consecutive victory and looking to remain undefeated at home when the Aggies play host to No. 21 Washington on Saturday. First serve is slated for 1 p.m. at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
Prior to the match, there will be numerous activities for children beginning at noon on the grandstand side of the tennis center. Reveille and the Yell Leaders will be in attendance and available for photographs, and the men's tennis team will be signing autographs. In addition, there will be inflatables and free pizza for the kids. Junior Aggie Club members will be admitted free.
A&M, listed No. 30 in the ITA rankings, improved to 4-2 overall - all against ranked opponents -- and 3-0 in home matches after trouncing No. 60 Fresno State, 6-1, on Thursday in College Station. The Aggies swept the doubles matches and won five of six singles matches en rout to their fourth consecutive win.
Aggie sophomore Nazari Urbina (Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico) enters the Washington match ranked a career-high No. 11 in the nation in singles. She is currently the highest ranked player in the Big 12 Conference, and the No. 11 ranking is the highest by an A&M player since All-American Lynn Staley was ranked No. 10 on Sept. 18, 1991.
Urbina is riding a five-match winning streak and is 17-4 overall, including 5-1 in dual matches all at the No. 1 line. She is 11-4 against nationally ranked players in 2010-11, with three of her four losses coming against players who are currently ranked in the top seven, including a 7-6 (4), 6-2 loss to Washington's sixth-ranked Denise Dy at the ITA All-American Championships last fall.
In addition to Urbina, Aggie seniors Morgan Frank (Oldsmar, Fla.) and Christi Liles (Largo, Fla.) have played a major part in A&M's current success and are both riding three-match winning streaks in singles.
In doubles, Urbina and Frank are No. 61 in the national doubles rankings with a 4-0 record in dual matches and a 6-1 mark overall.
Senior Stephanie Davidson (Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas) leads the Aggies in doubles victories with an 11-6 overall ledger. She has won her last four matches, including three with freshman Christi Potgieter (Petrusville, South Africa). With an 8-1 victory against Fresno State on Thursday, Davidson moved into 10th place in the A&M all-time records with her 84th career doubles victory. She needs one more win to move into a tie for ninth.
The Huskies are 7-4 entering a match against No. 52 TCU today in Fort Worth. UW is looking to get back into the win column after going 0-3 at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships last weekend. The Huskies fell to No. 4 North Carolina, No. 19 Arkansas and No. 13 Georgia Tech in Charlottesville, Va. Their only other loss this season was a 4-3 setback to San Diego, which has since climbed from No. 67 to No. 27.
UW, which has played six matches against top-20 opponents, has posted several impressive wins, having notched 4-3 victories against No. 14 Florida State, No. 16 Texas and No. 16 Ole Miss.
The Huskies are paced by a pair of All-American singles players, junior Denise Dy and senior Venise Chan. Dy is ranked sixth in the nation in singles, and Chan is No. 26 in, and the two post a combined 20-0 record in dual matches. They are No. 9 in doubles with an 8-0 record, all at the No. 1 line.
A&M is 2-0 in the all-time series against the Huskies. The teams first met in 1984 and did not meet again until 2008, when the Aggies defeated UW, 4-1, in the first round of the NCAA Championships at Stanford, Calif.
Free live video and scoring of all A&M home matches is available at AggieAthletics.com. Also follow @AggieTennis on Twitter.