May 13, 2011
LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - Kicking off its fifth consecutive NCAA Championships appearance, the 39th-ranked UNLV women's tennis team will square off with No. 29 San Diego at the Los Angeles Tennis Center Saturday morning. Doubles is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. PT and live scoring updates will be available by clicking here
The 2011 Mountain West Conference Regular-Season Champion Lady Rebels (20-5 overall/8-0 MWC) will look to post their second consecutive first-round victory in the event after upsetting Virginia Commonwealth a year ago in Chapel Hill, N.C.
UNLV and USD have met 10 times and the Toreros own a 6-4 advantage. The teams met in the NCAA postseason once before as host USD took a 5-4 first-round win over the Lady Rebels in 1997. UNLV, however, won 5-2 in the most recent meeting last season in a non-conference dual match in Las Vegas.
"This is a much improved USD team than the one we played last year," head coach Kevin Cory said. "We know we'll have a big challenge tomorrow and we're looking forward to it."
After driving to California late Thursday, Cory's squad spent Friday on the courts practicing.
"It's been a good trip so far and the weather conditions here are perfect," he said. "We had a good practice today and tomorrow we get to play an NCAA match at one of the top tennis facilities in the world so we are fired up to compete."
The winner of Saturday's match moves on to Sunday's second round vs. the winner of Pac-10 power and regional host UCLA vs. Quinnipiac, which won an automatic bid from the Northeast Conference.
The champions of the regionals advance to the NCAA Round of 16, which will be played starting May 20 at Stanford's Taube Family Tennis Stadium in Palo Alto, Calif.
This marks UNLV's eighth NCAA trip in the last 10 years and fourth to a California regional site in the last five seasons.
2011 NCAA WOMEN'S TENNIS REGIONALS (At Los Angeles/Host: UCLA)May 14: First Round - 9 a.m.#39 UNLV (20-5) vs. #29 San Diego (18-5)First Round - 12 p.m.Quinnipiac (14-8) vs. #6 UCLA (18-5)May 15: Second Round - 12 p.m.
