April 19, 2011
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The Texas A&M women's tennis team battles league-leader and six-time defending Big 12 champion Baylor Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
The event has been designated as a "Maroon Out Match" and fans wearing maroon will be admitted free.
"It's at our place, but Baylor is a great team, a top 5-10 team all year, so it's going to take everything we've got," A&M coach Bobby Kleinecke said. "That's our job to believe we can win it and to come out and play. We have a lot of talent on this team, and at times we haven't shown it, but on any given day, we can come away with the win.
"We need a lot of people out there," he added. "They are going to be in for a good match."
The No. 30 Aggies are 13-6 overall and in fifth place in the Big 12 with a 6-3 record with two matches remaining in the regular season. They have only one more conference loss than second-place Texas, which has completed the season at 9-2. A&M, 8-1 in home matches, has won four of its last five matches and enters the Baylor contest on a three-game winning streak after most recently knocking off both Iowa State and No. 34 Nebraska on the road last weekend.
Nazari Urbina, a sophomore from Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, leads the Aggies and is ranked No. 30 in the nation in singles with a 25-8 overall record. She is 13-5 in dual matches, all at the No. 1 line, including 7-2 in Big 12 matches only.
Senior Morgan Frank (Oldsmar, Fla.), who was named Big 12 Player of the Week today, has won her last five matches at the No. 2 line and is 8-1 in conference matches only. She is 16-3 in dual matches at No. 2 and 22-6 overall, and she has climbed into ninth place in the A&M records for most career singles victories with 87. Frank needs one more win to move into a tie for eighth with former All-American Kim Labuschagne (1985-87).
Frank also is in ninth place for most doubles wins with 87 and needs one more victory to move into a tie for eighth with Martina Nedorostova (1999-2002).
Senior Stephanie Davidson (Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas), who plays doubles with Frank at the No. 2 line, also is climbing the career charts in doubles. She is 95-42 in her career, ranking fourth in the A&M all-time records. She needs five more wins to move into a tie for third with former Aggie All-American Jessica Roland (2001-04).
Senior Christi Liles (Largo, Fla.) is 6-3 in singles in Big 12 matches, all at the No. 3 line, while Davidson, who typically plays No. 6 singles, is 5-4, having occasionally played up at the No. 5 line for several matches throughout the season due to injuries to sophomore Janelle Cuthbertson (Perth, Australia) and freshman Christi Potgieter (Petrusville, South Africa).
Baylor (20-3) is atop the Big 12 standings with an 8-1 record and is riding a 10-match winning streak. The Lady Bears' only conference loss was to Kansas State, 4-3, on March 18 in Waco. Individually the Lady Bears are a combined 44-10 in Big 12 singles matches, including 9-0 at each of the No. 2, 3, and 4 lines. Baylor players also are a combined 20-7 in doubles matches, including 8-1 at the No. 1 position.
The Lady Bears have four players listed in this week's ITA national singles rankings: No. 15 Sona Novakova, No. 39 Nina Secerbegovic, No. 47 Diana Nakic and No. 107 Jelena Stanivuk. Secerbegovic also is ranked nationally in doubles with three different partners. She is No. 38 with Novakova, 55th with Stanivuk and 59th with Karolina Filipiak.
A&M leads the all-time series against the Bears, 20-17, since 1980, but Baylor has won the last 10 meetings. Last season, Baylor topped A&M 6-1 in Waco. Then-72-ranked Aggie freshman Urbina earned the Aggies' only point with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over 18th-ranked Secerbegovic at the No. 2 line.
The teams also met in the 2010 Big 12 Championship semifinals, where Baylor eliminated A&M, 4-0.
A&M concludes the regular season Friday at home against No. 41 Texas Tech at 6 p.m. It will be 12th Man Day, and all current A&M students will be admitted free by showing their student ID. In addition, it will be Senior Night as seniors Davidson, Frank and Liles will be playing the final home match of their four-year A&M careers.
The Big 12 Championship will be April 28-May 1 in Waco, Texas.
Free live video and scoring of A&M matches is available at AggieAthletics.com. Also follow on Twitter @AggieTennis.