Denver - The NCAA announced Tuesday that two Western Athletic Conference women's tennis teams would be a part of the field of 64 to compete in the 2009 NCAA Tennis Championships. Boise State and 2009 WAC Champion, Fresno State will travel to their respective regions and compete in the first round of the tournament.
The No. 35-ranked Boise State will face No. 24-ranked Alabama (15-8) in the first round on May 8 or 9. The Broncos (23-4) will travel to Athens, Ga., where the University of Georgia will host a four-team first and second round tournament. The Broncos are headed for their third-consecutive and sixth overall appearance in the NCAA tournament.
If they Broncos defeat the Crimson Tide in the first round, they will face the winner of the No. 2-ranked Georgia (23-2) vs. South Carolina State (14-4) match on May 9 or 10. The 64 team tournament is a single-elimination tournament, with the winners of each of the 16 first and second round sites advancing to the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championships.
No. 16th-ranked Bulldogs (22-5) are fresh off their eighth-straight WAC Championship and drew the No. 16 seed in the tournament. The team will take on unranked Eastern Kentucky (22-5), the 2009 Ohio Valley Conference Champions. The first and second round matches will take place in Champaign, Ill., on the campus of the University of Illinois. The winner of the first-round match between Fresno State and Eastern Kentucky will take on the winner of No. 34-ranked Illinois (18-7) and No. 19th-ranked Vanderbilt (11-8.)
In last year's tournament, Fresno State took down Lamar, 4-0, and Arizona State, 4-1, before falling to Northwestern in the round of 16 by a score of 4-1. The Bulldogs make their 14th-consecutive appearance in the tournament, making the field every year since 1996.
The 2009 Division I NCAA Tennis Championship first and second rounds will be held May 8-9 at 16 various campus sites. The championship finals will be held May 14-25 at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The team finals will be held between May 14-19 while individual singles are slated for May 20-25 and doubles for May 21-25.
Participants in the 2009 NCAA Division I individual singles and doubles brackets were announced Wednesday, April 29 by the NCAA and four Fresno State athletes were chosen to compete in the singles and doubles tournaments. The complete list is below:
Singles
Melanie Gloria, Sr., Fresno State (automatic qualifier)
Anastasia Petukhova, Jr., Fresno State (at-large selection)
Doubles
(No. 1 seed) Renata Kucerkova Anastasia Petukhova Fresno State (automatic qualifier)
Tinesta Rowe/Melanie Gloria, Fresno State (at-large selection)