April 10, 2002

LAS VEGAS - Having closed out its regular season with two wins over unranked conference opponents last week, the UNLV women's tennis team remained No. 16 in the nation in the Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings, which were released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Wednesday.

The Lady Rebels, who stood at No. 56 in the preseason poll, finished the regular season with a school-record tying mark of 17-3 with all three losses coming to teams ranked among the nation's top 25 (No. 3 Stanford, No. 4 Wake Forest and No. 24 San Diego State). The only other time the UNLV women's program was ranked in the top 20 was four weeks in 1997 when the squad rose to a school-record No. 14.

UNLV, which was 9-3 vs. ranked teams this season, went 6-1 in the Mountain West Conference to secure second place and the No. 2 seed at the league championship April 25-27 in Provo, Utah. On the men's side, the Rebels (9-9) fell two spots to No. 56 after losing to No. 5 Pepperdine over the weekend.

UNLV will close out its regular season with a trip to Salt Lake City. If the Rebels can upend BYU on Friday as Utah on Saturday, they will win at least a share of their first MWC regular-season championship. New individual rankings will be released next week.

ITA COLLEGIATE WOMEN'S RANKINGS
1. Georgia2. Florida3. Stanford4. Wake Forest5. Duke6. Vanderbilt7. North Carolina8. UCLA9. Arizona State10. Texas11. Virginia Commonwealth12. Southern Cal13. Tennessee14. William & Mary15. California16. UNLV17. Kentucky18. Northwestern19. South Carolina20. Washington21. Arizona22. Georgia Tech23. Fresno State24. San Diego State25. Notre Dame