May 6, 2004
The NCAA has announced match times for next weekend's first and second rounds of the Division I team tennis tournaments. The Illinois men will open tourney play against Western Michigan Saturday, May 15, 10 a.m. CDT at the Atkins Tennis Center. That match will be followed by the contest between Louisville and Arizona State at 2 p.m. The winners of those two matches will clash Sunday, May 16 at noon for a berth in the Sweet 16, the first of the final four rounds, which will be held in Tulsa, Okla., May 22-25.
The Fighting Illini women will take on William & Mary at 10 a.m. EDT in Durham, N.C.; the second match will feature the home-standing Duke Blue Devils and Furman with a 2 p.m. start. The winners of those two matches will compete starting at 4 p.m. Saturday for the right to move on to Athens, Ga., where the last four rounds of the tournament will be played May 20-23.
The NCAA also announced the fields for the men's and women's singles and doubles tournaments, which will directly follow the team tournaments in Tulsa, Okla., and in Athens, Ga., respectively.
Jennifer McGaffigan, the winningest player in the history of the UI women's tennis who has been ranked as high as 14th in the nation this season, has punched her ticket for the singles tourney, while she and junior partner
Cynthya Goulet, who have reached the Top 7 this year, will compete in the doubles tournament. Those competitions will take place from May 24-28.
UI senior Brian Wilson, the top-ranked singles player in the country, received the No. 1 seed for the men's singles championship event. Classmate Phil Stolt, who ranked as high as No. 20 this season and comes in this week at No. 51, also made the singles field of 64. Those two players are ranked No. 6 by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) this week, but managed to pull the No. 4 seed for the NCAA tourney. With the seedings, Wilson receives All-America honors for the second year in a row (he and former Illini Rajeev Ram won the national doubles title a year ago) in both singles and doubles; Stolt's doubles seeding earns him All-America status for the first time.
Tennis athletes can earn All-America status in singles by: earning a Top-16 seed, reaching the Round of 16 in the singles tournament, or finishing in the Top 20 in the singles rankings. In doubles, the criteria are bring a Top-8 seed, reaching the doubles quarterfinals, or finishing among the Top 10 in the doubles rankings.
McGaffigan and Wilson have also received another prestigious honor from the ITA. It was announced today that the two Illinois No. 1 players will be a part of the 2004 American Express Collegiate All-Star Team that will represent U.S. college tennis in two exhibition team matches during a June 13-21 trip to China. Tennis legend Stan Smith will be the honorary coach of the team. A former U.S. Open, Wimbledon and NCAA champion, Smith also participated in an exhibition series in China in 1977.
The trip is being hosted by the Chinese Tennis Association and the U.S. squad will be competing against teams selected by the CTA, consisting of the best young players in China, ages 17-23. The American Express Collegiate All-Star Team, in addition to Wilson and McGaffigan, consists of the following eight players: (men) Lester Cook of Texas A&M, Phillip King of Duke, Rob Steckley of Lander (S.C.) and Jeremy Wurtzman of Ohio State, and (women) Zsofia Golopencza of Armstrong Atlantic State (Ga.), Amanda Johnson of Duke, Jennifer Magley of Florida and Alicia Salas of Notre Dame. The All Stars were selected by the ITA Board of Directors for their outstanding tennis achievements, as well as for their sportsmanship and ambassadorial qualities.
More information on the ITA all-star trip to China
Complete NCAA brackets and tournament fields
