Jan. 28, 2011
WACO, Texas - The third-ranked Baylor women's tennis team will host three other top-65 teams in the ITA National Indoor Qualifier on Jan. 29-30 at the Baylor Tennis Center. No. 48 Rice, No. 55 Alabama and No. 64 Oklahoma State will join the Lady Bears in a battle for one qualifying spot to the ITA National Team Indoors near the end of February.
Baylor will start the weekend taking on Alabama at 11 a.m. on Saturday, followed by a 1 p.m. match between Rice and Oklahoma State. Sunday, the losing team from each match will face off in a consolation match at 11 a.m., followed by the qualifier championship match at 1 p.m. between Saturday's winning teams.
The Lady Bears enter the match coming off a season-opening win last week against unranked Houston. Baylor took a 6-1 victory over the Cougars, winning two of three doubles matches and five of six singles matches.
The BU lineup features three ranked players, including No. 19 Sona Novakova and No. 40 Nina Secerbegovic, who each picked up victories against Houston. Senior Karolina Filipiak is ranked 122nd and will see her first dual-match action of the season after compiling a 12-4 record in tournament matches thus far.
Alabama will be playing its first dual match of the 2011 season, while Rice and Oklahoma State each bring in 1-1 records. The Owls opened the season with a 7-0 defeat of unranked Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, then were defeated 7-0 against No. 17 Texas. Oklahoma State started the season with a 6-1 win over unranked Mississippi State before falling 4-3 to North Texas.
The meeting between the Lady Bears and Crimson Tide will be the first in women's tennis history. Baylor holds a 13-4 edge all-time over OSU, including wins in each of the last eight meetings, should the two teams meet on Sunday. BU, however, is just 5-12 all-time against Rice, but has won five of the last seven meetings dating back to the early 1990's.
Live scoring will be available for each match on www.BaylorBears.com, along with full recaps for the Baylor matches.
