Jan. 11, 2011

LAS VEGAS - Players from eight of the top college programs in the United States, including host UNLV, will gather in Las Vegas this weekend for the ninth annual Freeman Memorial Women's Tennis Championships at the Fertitta Tennis Complex on campus.

Individual competitors will be supplied by teams that are nearly all currently ranked in the nation's top 30 by the ITA: No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 Florida, No. 5 UCLA, No. 6 North Carolina, No. 19 USC, No. 20 Arizona State as well as the University of Oregon. Host UNLV, ranked 29th nationally, will add six singles players and three doubles teams to the field.

Action begins with doubles each day at 10 a.m. PST on Friday and Saturday with the finals scheduled for Sunday. Admission to all matches is free. The event features two flights each of both singles and doubles along with consolation rounds.

An impressive field of no less than 15 ranked individuals and six of the sport's ranked doubles teams are scheduled to compete. USC's Maria Sanchez, ranked third, tops the singles lineup while North Carolina's eight-ranked Shinann Featherston and Lauren McHale are the top-seeded doubles team.

Last year's event saw Stanford players sweep the titles. Stacey Tan downed North Carolina's Katrina Tsang 7-6, 6-2 to win the Flight One singles title. Tan then teamed with Mallory Burdette to take the doubles crown later in the day over the top-seeded Tar Heel duo of Sanaz Marand and Sophie Grabinski by the score of 8-6. Stanford's Natalie Dillon took home the Flight Two singles honors by outlasting UNLV's Rumyana Terzieva 6-4, 6-7, 6-2.

FREEMAN MEMORIAL ALL-TIME SINGLES CHAMPIONSYEAR  PLAYER               SCHOOL2010  Stacey Tan           Stanford2009  Irini Falconi        Georgia Tech2008  Amanda Fink          USC2007  No Champion (Weather)2006  Celia Durkin         Stanford2005  Shadisha Robinson    Georgia2004  Theresa Logar        Stanford2003* Vilmarie Castellvi   Tennessee
FREEMAN MEMORIAL ALL-TIME DOUBLES CHAMPIONSYEAR  PLAYERS                              SCHOOL2010  Stacey Tan/Mallory Burdette          Stanford2009  Renata Kucerkova/Anastasia Petukhova Fresno State2008  Jessica Nguyen/Whitney Deason        Stanford2007  No Champion (Weather)2006  Alice Barnes/Anne Yelsey             Stanford2005  Daniela Bercek/Riza Zalameda         UCLA2004  Boglarka Berecz/Nina Suvak           Florida2003* Vilmarie Castellvi/Melissa Schaub    Tennessee*Freeman Memorial was known as the Collegiate Kickoff Classic in its first year
SCHEDULE OF PLAYFridayDoubles Round of 16     10:00 a.m.Singles Round of 32     FollowSingles Round of 16     Follow
SaturdayDoubles Quarterfinals    10:00 a.m.Singles Quarterfinals    FollowSingles Semifinals       Follow
SundayDoubles Semifinals       10:00 a.m.Doubles Final            FollowSingles Final            Follow