Women's Tennis 2011-12 Schedule Packed with Nation's Top Teams
Thursday, August 25, 2011 | Women's Tennis
In addition to playing in the nation's toughest women's tennis conference, the Florida women's tennis team will face four additional teams that finished last year ranked among the nation's top six, as head coach Roland Thornqvist released the 2011-12 schedule.
The Gators, who captured the 2011 NCAA Team Championship after sweeping the 2011 Southeastern Conference Tournament and regular-season titles, will test themselves throughout the 2011-12 season highlighted by non-league match-ups against Stanford, Duke, North Carolina and Baylor, which finished No. 2, 3, 4 and 6, respectively in the final 2011 ITA Rankings.
The annual meeting against instate foe Florida State, which finished ranked No. 15 last year, is scheduled for Feb. 29 in Gainesville, after Florida plays Pepperdine (No. 25) in Malibu on Feb. 10.
The Gators play host to North Carolina on Feb. 26 and to Duke on March 14, while traveling to play at Baylor on Feb. 4 and at Stanford on Feb. 12.
“Coupled with the very tough SEC schedule, we wanted to put together a high quality, non-conference schedule,” said UF head coach Roland Thornqvist, who enters his 11th year at the helm of the Gators. “Adding Stanford to the usual top teams we play annually is good for college tennis. The last few years we've shown that we've been the top two teams in the country and that we now will play during the regular season will be good for the sport.
“We've been trying to schedule a regular-season match against each other for the last few years and it was always difficult because of the dates we had to set aside to compete in the National Team Indoor Championships,” Thornqvist continued. “We finally decided to try this instead of playing the Indoors for the next two years and see how it works.”
The last time the two powerhouse programs scheduled a regular-season matchup was 19 years ago, when Stanford traveled to Gainesville on March 24, 1993 and the second-ranked Gators upended the then-top-ranked Cardinal, 5-1.
In fact, of the 28 prior meetings between the two schools the planned meeting on February 12 will be just the third time ever Florida and Stanford will play a regular-season, non-tournament match. The first contest was on March 31, 1989, also in Gainesville, where the top-ranked Cardinal prevailed 5-4 against the second-ranked Gators.
The last two NCAA Championship matches featured the Gators against the Cardinal, with Stanford winning 4-3 in 2010 and Florida earning the 4-3 decision in Palo Alto for the 2011 national championship.
Stanford will play Florida in Gainesville during the 2012-13 regular season.
Florida, which returns all eight scholarship players from last year's championship team, begins its SEC season on March 2 at Tennessee (No. 17 in the 2011 final ranking), before playing two days later at Georgia, which finished eighth in last year's final rankings.
The Gators play host to Vanderbilt (No. 16), Kentucky, Ole Miss, Arkansas (No. 22) and LSU in league action, while traveling to face Mississippi State, Auburn, Alabama and South Carolina.
“The SEC will be as tough as it's ever been,” Thornqvist said. “Although the league lost some quality players from last year, it seems every team got stronger by adding some quality players to the mix. There are going to be a number of teams vying for that SEC Championship again.”
Prior to the exciting dual-match slate, Florida is set to compete in six individual tournaments, which includes hosting the ITA Southeast Region Championships, Oct. 21-24. That four-day event held at the Ring Tennis Complex will serve as a feeder for the singles and doubles champions into the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships, considered the second-leg of the collegiate grand slam.
Comprising the ITA Southeast Region are Bethune-Cookman, UCF, Florida A&M, Florida Atlantic, Florida Gulf Coast, Florida International, Florida State, Florida, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Georgia, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Mercer, Miami, North Florida, South Florida and Stetson.
“The ITA Southeast Regional Championships is one of the most important events of the fall,” Thornqvist said. “We have the luxury of choosing some fantastic facilities in the southeast region to host this event and we have one of them.”
The complete 2011-12 schedule can be found on GatorZone.com, the official website of the Florida Gators.
