Texas A&M Set to Face Rice in NCAA Championship First Round

Friday, May 11

Austin, Texas

10 a.m.

Texas A&M

Rice

Photo by: Sam Craft/Texas A&M Athletics

May 10, 2018 | Women's Tennis

Complete Match Notes (PDF)

By: Texas A&M Media Relations

No. 30 Texas A&M Aggies (16-10) vs. No. 40 Rice Owls (15-8)
Friday, May 11, 10 a.m.
Texas Tennis Center
Austin, Texas

Complete match notes (PDF): https://bit.ly/2Ivp4NG
Live Video: https://texassports.com/sports/2018/2/8/texas-tennis-center-live-video.aspx
Live Scoring: http://sidearmstats.com/texas/wtennis/xlive.htm
NCAA Division I women's championship program: ncaa.com/diwomenstennis

TOURNAMENT PREVIEW

Texas A&M (16-10) received an at-large bid to the 64-team NCAA Division I Women's Tennis Championship and will open the tournament against the Rice Owls at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 11 at the Texas Tennis Center in Austin.
The winner between Texas A&M (16-10) and Rice (15-8) will face the winner between host and No. 6 seed Texas (22-4) and McNeese State (18-3) in second-round action at noon on Saturday, May 12, also at the Texas Tennis Center.
The second-round winner advances to the round of 16 and the final championship site, the Wake Forest Tennis Complex in Winston-Salem, N.C., May 17-22, with Wake Forest University serving as host.
Links to first and second round live scoring/video are available at TexasSports.com.
The NCAA Division I women's championship program is available at https://www.ncaa.com/DIWomensTennis

TEXAS A&M NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP NOTES

Texas A&M is making its 19th consecutive and 24th overall appearance in the NCAA Championship.
The Aggies are 24-23 all-time in NCAA matches.
In Texas A&M NCAA history, the Aggies are 11-3 in home matches, 12-12 at neutral sites and 1-8 at away sites.
Since the NCAA Tournament went to a 64-team field in 1999, Texas A&M is 8-3 in first-round matches at neutral sites. The Aggies are 1-7 in second-round matches at away sites.
Texas A&M has advanced to at least the NCAA Sweet 16 five times in school history, including in four of the last five years.
Texas A&M's best NCAA tournament finish in program history was runner-up in 2013, when the Aggies fell to Stanford, 4-3, in the championship match at Urbana, Illinois.
Last year, 20^th-ranked Texas A&M was sent to Waco, Texas, where the Aggies defeated Louisiana Monroe, 4-2, in the first round and then upset host and 16^th-ranked Baylor, 4-3, in the second round to advance to the round of 16 for the fourth time in five years and the fifth time overall. A&M then fell to No. 1-ranked and eventual national champion Florida, 4-0, at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Georgia.
Texas A&M is 4-9 against the 2018 tournament field.
Vanderbilt is the No. 1 seed in the 2018 NCAA Championship and Florida is the defending national champion.
Texas A&M, which went 5-8 in the Southeastern Conference regular season and tied LSU for ninth place, is one of 11 teams representing the SEC in the NCAA Championship. Other SEC teams, with seeds in parentheses, are Vanderbilt (1), Ole Miss (5), Georgia (7), Florida (9), South Carolina (10), Auburn, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State and Tennessee.

SERIES RECORDS

A&M holds a 26-10 lead in the all-time series against the Owls since the series began in 1980. Rice, however, has won the last two meetings, including a 4-3 victory against the Aggies on Feb. 5 in Houston.
This is the second time A&M and Rice will meet in the NCAA Tournament. In the only other meeting, A&M defeated host Rice, 5-3, in the first round of the NCAA Southwest Regional on May 9, 1997.

Texas leads the all-time series against the Aggies, 44-10, including 14-2 in matches played in Austin.
A&M has won four of the last five meetings against Texas, all under the Aggies' previous head coach, Howard Joffe, who was hired as the head coach of the Longhorns following the 2015 season.
The teams are 1-1 when meeting in an NCAA match, with each team winning on its home court.
In the most recent matchup between the two teams, A&M defeated the Longhorns, 4-2, in the second round of the 2014 NCAA tournament in College Station to advance to the round of 16, where the Aggies fell to North Carolina, 4-1.

Texas A&M and McNeese State have never met.

PROJECTED TEXAS A&M LINEUP
                                                                                                  Overall    Dual     SEC
1 Singles: Domenica Gonzalez (Sr., Guayaquil, Ecuador) 17-6      15-5      3-5
2 Singles: #86 Macarena Olivares (Sr., Santiago, Chile)   28-11     18-6      7-4
3 Singles: Eva Paalma (Sr., Tallinn, Estonia)                        15-15     11-8      3-4
4 Singles: Riley McQuaid (Fr., Tustin, Calif.)                       23-13     14-6      3-5
5 Singles: Tatiana Makarova (Fr., Moscow, Russia)             4-9         4-9        3-6
6 Singles: Iulia Ivascu (Fr., Bucharest, Romania)                13-13      7-4        0-1
Also available: Dorthea Faa-Hviding (Fr., Stavanger, Norway)        19-19    12-9      4-6
                                                                                                   Overall    Dual       SEC
1 Doubles: #62 Gonzalez/Paalma                                        20-11     11-8      7-4
2 Doubles: Makarova/Olivares                                               3-4         3-4        1-3
3 Doubles: Ivascu/McQuaid                                                    5-5         2-1        1-0

OPPONENT NOTES

Rice (15-8) received an at-large bid and is making its seventh consecutive and 11th overall appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Last year the Owls fell to TCU, 4-0, in the NCAA first round, snapping a streak of five consecutive years in which Rice reached at least the second round.
Rice is 6-10 all-time in NCAA matches.
The Owls' best finish was a Sweet 16 appearance in 2012 before falling to eventual finalist UCLA.
The Owls ended the regular season with a 4-3 loss to FIU in the C-USA tournament championship match on April 22, ending Rice's five-year reign as C-USA champions.
Rice is No. 40 in the most recent ITA national team rankings.
Seniors Lindsey Hodge and Wendy Zhang are No. 58 in the national doubles rankings.
Hodge and Zhang lead the Owls in doubles victories with a 19-8 overall record, including a team-best 12-6 in dual matches, all at the No. 1 line.
Savannah Durkin is riding a team-best 7-match winning streak in singles. She leads the Owls in singles victories with a 24-10 overall record, including a 14-5 ledger in dual matches only.
Hodge and Zhang were named to the All-Conference USA first team in both singles and doubles.
Freshmen Anna Bowtell and Michaela Haet were named to the C-USA All-Freshman team.
Elizabeth Schmidt is 161-86 in her 10th season as head coach at Rice.

Texas (22-4) is the No. 6 seed in the 64-team field and ranked No. 5 in the ITA national team rankings.
The Longhorns received an automatic bid after winning the Big 12 Conference Championship tournament.
Texas, which also won the Big 12 regular season by going 9-0, has won 17 consecutive matches entering the NCAA tournament.
The Longhorns are making their third consecutive and 35th overall appearance in the NCAA tournament.
Texas has won two national titles: 1993 and 1995.
Sophomore Bianca Turati is the No. 1-ranked singles player in the nation. Her twin sister, Anna Turati, is No. 30.
Petra Granic is No. 64 in singles and she and partner Bojana Markovic are No. 55 in doubles.
Most recently, the Longhorns defeated Texas Tech, 4-1, in the finals of the Big 12 Championship on April 29.
Texas has not lost a match since dropping back-to-back-to-back matches against SEC teams Georgia, South Carolina and Ole Miss at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships, Feb. 9-11, in Madison, Wisconsin.
Howard Joffe, who directed A&M to the NCAA finals in 2013, is in his third season as head coach of the Longhorns.

McNeese State (18-3) received and automatic bid and is making its first NCAA appearance after winning the Southland Conference tournament championship.
The Cowgirls also won the SLC regular-season title.

TEXAS A&M HEAD COACH MARK WEAVER

Mark Weaver, who became the sixth head coach in the history of the Aggie women's tennis program in July 2015, is 51-34 in the third year of his head coaching career.
Weaver reached the 50-win milestone with the Aggies' 4-1 victory over then-No. 25 Mississippi State on March 30, 2018.
Weaver's career at Texas A&M has come full circle, having begun his stint in Aggieland as a student-athlete and four-year standout on the Aggie men's tennis team from 1990-94. The Shreveport, La., native then served six years as a volunteer coach for the A&M women's team before being hired as the women's tennis assistant coach in 2007.
Weaver was honored as the 2014 ITA Texas Region Assistant Coach of the Year as the Aggies finished 21-7 and No. 9 in the final ITA rankings, the second highest final ranking in school history.
Texas A&M has advanced to the NCAA tournament every year Weaver has served in a coaching capacity for the women's team, including a historic national runner-up finish and SEC championship title in 2013 while he was an assistant coach, and the 2003 Big 12 Conference regular season title and the 2004 Big 12 tournament title when he was a volunteer assistant.

PARTING SHOTS

In dual matches only, Texas A&M is a combined 82-47 in singles matches and 31-25 in doubles matches this season.
A&M is 14-1 when No. 1 singles wins, 10-1 when No. 3 wins and 11-0 when No. 5 wins.
Texas A&M has won the doubles point in 13 of the 22 matches in which doubles was contested. The Aggies are 11-2 when winning the doubles point and 2-7 when losing the doubles point.
Texas A&M is 5-8 against nationally ranked opponents, with a win against No. 17 Tennessee in the SEC season opener on March 2 marking the highest ranked win of the season.

Visit 12thMan.com for more information on Texas A&M women's tennis. Aggie fans also can keep up to date with the A&M women's tennis team by following @AggieWTEN on Twitter and Instagram, as well as on Facebook at Facebook.com/AggieWTEN.

Pronunciations
Dorthea Faa-Hviding                            door-TAY ah FAH-vuh-ding
Domenica Gonzalez                             doe-MEN-eh-ka
Iulia Ivascu                                             YOU-lee-ah e-VOSS-coo
Eva Paalma                                            A-va PAUL-ma
Jordan Szabo                                         ZAH-bo