SPORTS
UW hosts USTA/ITA event
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by Dave McGrath
Thursday, February 3, 2005
The University of Wisconsin women’s tennis team will host the 18th annual USTA/ITA National Women’s Team Indoor Championship Thursday at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium. Wisconsin has hosted the tournament every year since its inception in 1988.
The tournament is one of the premier amateur women’s tennis events in the United States, featuring nearly all of the world’s top players. This season 16 teams were invited to participate, along with host Wisconsin, including each of the top 10 and 14 of the top 15 programs in the world. The only participating teams not ranked in the top 15 are No. 24 New Mexico, No. 35 Harvard and No. 48 Wisconsin.
Florida and Stanford, who will both attend this season’s event, have won 13 of the 17 tournaments, seven going to Stanford and six to Florida. Georgia, with three titles to its name, will also be in attendance along with Duke, who won the title in 2003.
The tournament will be a daunting early-season test for Wisconsin, who has gone 2-0 this season against No. 70 Colorado and unranked Northern Illinois. The Badgers, however, are not only looking forward to the challenge, but to the actual meet itself, which is expected to draw large crowds to the Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
“This is probably my favorite tournament of the whole year,” senior Katie McGaffigan said. “A lot of our parents come out to watch us and we have a lot of support here. We are also kind of the underdogs. We don’t have any pressure. Any win that we get here is a good win for us, so we are just really looking forward to it.”
The team is especially excited about the opportunity to play the top-flight competition that the tournament offers.
“Every athlete wants the chance to play against the best,” head coach Patti Henderson said. “That’s something that you strive for. And when you get that opportunity you want to relish it. So for us it’s huge in that capacity. It’s also huge in the ability for us to recognize, you know, where we are at this level because for NCAA, for tennis it’s the Sweet 16. You start with a round of 64 and you get down to the final site, which is around the Sweet 16. And that’s, you know, that’s what we strive for every year and that’s where we’d like to be. So for us we use it as a measuring stick and a barometer.”
The Badgers will have a pair of their own players that garner the designation as a couple of the nation’s best in McGaffigan and sophomore sensation Caitlin Burke, who are ranked No. 53 and No. 99, respectively.
Those two will be the catalysts for Wisconsin if the Badgers are going to make a statement at the tournament. For the second year in a row, Wisconsin has a first-round date with Vanderbilt, currently ranked No. 6 nationally. The Badgers hope to improve on the showing they had against the Commodores a year ago, when Vanderbilt swept Wisconsin 7-0.
“You know, we drew Vanderbilt, which is the same team that we drew last year first round,” Henderson said. “We certainly would like to improve upon our performance last year. We fought a good doubles point with them to start out the match, but then they were better than us across the board. So this year we’d like to fare better than that.”
The tournament begins for Wisconsin at 9 a.m. Thursday morning. If Wisconsin gets past Vanderbilt, it will play 3 p.m. Friday. Otherwise it will again play at 9 a.m. in a consolation round.
