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No. 13 USC Women’s Tennis Begins Pursuit of NCAA Championship
May 02, 2019 | Women's Tennis, Features
THIS WEEK
The USC women's tennis team has secured yet another trip to the NCAA tournament by locking down the No. 13 seed. The Women of Troy (18-7) will be participating in their 36th appearance in the NCAA tournament and will host the First and Second Rounds at Marks Stadium on May 4-5. If the Trojans should advance, they will participate in a Super Regional for the Round of 16 next weekend (May 10-11). The Round of 8 and beyond, in addition to the NCAA Individual Championships, will be held in Orlando, Fla. from May 17-19. Under the tutelage of head coach Alison Swain, USC will face Illinois State (20-6) on Saturday (May 4) at 12 p.m. Should the Trojans defeat the Redbirds, USC will take on the winner of the First Round match up between UNLV and Texas Tech on Sunday (May 5) at 1 p.m.
NCAA NOTES
The Women of Troy hold a 70-33 all-time record in the tournament. USC has won six national championships in all, including NCAA titles in 1983 and 1985 after the NCAA began its women's tennis championships in 1982. USC has won five National Singles Championships (1976 - Barbara Hallquist [USTA], 1977 - Barbara Hallquist [USTA], 1978 - Stacy Margolin [USTA], 1981 - Anna Maria Fernandez [AIAW], 1983 - Beth Herr [NCAA]) and two National Doubles Championships (1980 - Trey Lewis/Anne White [AIAW], 2013 - Kaitlyn Christian/Sabrina Santamaria [NCAA]).
ORACLE/ITA RANKINGS UPDATES
The Women of Troy enter the NCAA Tournament as the No. 13 ranked team in the country as well as holding the No. 13 seed. USC boasts two Trojans in the national singles rankings with freshman Salma Ewing locking down the No. 51 spot and junior Angela Kulikov claiming the No. 83 rank. In doubles, the Trojan tandem of Kulikov/Valdes are the No. 1 ranked pair in the nation.
SCOUTING ILLINOIS STATE
The Illinois State Redbirds are 20-6 on the season. After going 5-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference to win the conference championship for the first time since 2005, they locked down an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Head coach Maja Kovacek is in her fifth season with Illinois State leads the Redbirds, and they do not have any ranked singles or doubles players. USC has never played Illinois State in the history of the program.
SCOUTING TEXAS TECH
The No. 26 ranked Texas Tech Lady Raiders hold an 17-8 overall record and went 6-3 in Big 12 Conference Play. The Lady Raiders, led by 11th year head coach Todd Petty, fell to Texas in the semifinal match of the Big 12 Tournament. Texas Tech boasts one ranked singles player in No. 22 Felicity Maltby. USC is 2-0 all-time against Texas Tech with their last encounter being a 4-0 win over the Lady Raiders in the Second Round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
SCOUTING UNLV
The UNLV Rebels are 17-6 overall on the season and went 7-0 in Mountain West Conference play to win both the regular-season and tournament championship for the first time in program history. In his 20th season with the Rebels, head coach Kevin Cory led his squad to an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament to mark their 13th program appearance. The Rebels have one singles player in the national rankings in No. 105 Aiwen Zhu. In the doubles game, UNLV has the pair of Huang/Zhu locking in the No. 80 ranking. USC is 7-0 all-time against UNLV.
INDIVIDUAL ACTION
In the individual action, the Women of Troy will be represented in the NCAA Singles and Doubles Tournaments (May 20-25) in Orlando, Fla. with one doubles pair and one singles player. The No.1 ranked duo of junior Angela Kulikov and senior Rianna Valdes will make their NCAA doubles debut as the No. 1 seed in the tournament. On the singles side, No 51 ranked freshman Salma Ewing will also make her first career NCAA Tournament appearance.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
The No. 1 ranked duo of Angela Kulikov and Rianna Valdes have been on the rise throughout this season. After finishing the fall ranked No. 42, the duo jumped to No. 18, only to become unranked in the following poll. After their No. 20 ranking on March 20, they continued to steadily rise until their May 1 ranking of No. 1 was officially announced. Kulikov/Valdes have a record of 25-6 on the season and have tallied wins over 12 nationally ranked teams this season, including five pairs in the Top 15.
BY THE NUMBERS
In her second season as the USC women's tennis head coach, Alison Swain has brought the Trojans back into national recognition and prepared them for a championship run to bring home the team's third NCAA team title. Six Trojans have earned double-digit wins in singles. Freshman Danielle Willson, who earned a scholarship earlier this season, leads the group with 26 singles wins. Willson is followed by freshman No. 51 Salma Ewing who is closing in on the 20-win club as she enters NCAA play with 19 singles wins. Junior No. 83 Angela Kulikov and sophomore Ana Neffa each have 16 wins, while junior Becca Weissmann tallies 12 wins and junior Constance Branstine holds 10.
CLINCHERS
Eight different Trojans have clinched matches for USC this season. Freshmen Danielle Willson leads the team with four and Salma Ewing is right behind her with three. Angela Kulikov, Constance Branstine, Sydney Van Alphen, Becca Weissmann and Ana Neffa each have recorded two clinches and Rianna Valdes has tallied one.
PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Trojans had a solid run in the 2019 Pac-12 Team Championships. The Women of Troy entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed and defeated No. 5 seed California 4-1 in the quarterfinals of the tournament. In the semifinal match, USC fell 4-0 to No. 1 seed Stanford to end their pursuit of the Pac-12 title.
TROJANS DOWN UNDER
Kicking off the 2019 season was a trip overseas to Australia to compete in exhibition and regular-season matches during the 2019 Australian Open. These scheduled matches were the inaugural contests to take place on location during one of the four professional Grand Slam events.
Both the USC men's and women's teams made the international trip to participate in the collegiate matches.
Before the competition, both programs were able to explore the cities of Cairns and Melbourne and visiting interesting places like the Great Barrier Reef and a crocodile and wildlife park. At the wildlife park, the teams were able to watch crocodiles being fed, play with kangaroos and hold koala bears. In addition, they were able to watch some of the greatest tennis in the world at the Australian Open.
Junior co-captain Angela Kulikov blogged about her experience abroad for the USC Athletics website.
WATCH THE TROJANS
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