Best of the best: TCU women's tennis receives invitation to USTA/ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships

Best of the best: TCU women's tennis receives invitation to USTA/ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships
The event takes place at the University of Wisconsin Feb. 1-4

	Jeff Hammond will take the Frogs to their second straight appearance at the national team indoors

Dec. 7, 2006

FORT WORTH, Texas -- The TCU women's tennis team has been selected for the 2007 USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships, which takes place over Feb. 1-4 at the University of Wisconsin. It will mark the Horned Frogs' second straight appearance in the national event.

"This is an event for the best of the best," first year interim head coach Jefferson Hammond said. "We are honored to be going (to the championships) again and it is a great reward for all the hard work the team puts in. They deserve it."

The TCU women's program had a tremendous fall campaign and two players, Ana Cetnik and Anna Sydorska, were crowned national runners-up at the 2006 ITA National Indoor Doubles Championship. In addition, three TCU players earned preseason national rankings in singles. The national indoors will be the first team event of the season for the Horned Frogs.

"Attending the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships is a feather in the cap for the program," commented Hammond. "It not only gives us a lot of good matches early in the season, but is another building block in the long term vision of our program."

Only 16 teams comprise the field at the prestigious event, which in addition to TCU includes Baylor, BYU, California, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Pepperdine, Stanford, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Virginia Commonwealth and Wisconsin.

TCU concluded the 2006 season ranked No. 15 in the final FILA/ITA rankings.

According to Hammond, it's quite an honor to be a bubble team and selected for the event.

"The top 13 ranked teams in the previous year's rankings are automatically invited," he said. "If teams turn down the invitation, then those spots become 'at large' positions. Those teams on the bubble are looked at closely and the rest of the field of 15 is filled. The host receives the 16th bid."

In TCU's inaugural appearance at the 2006 USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships, the Frogs defeated Vanderbilt, 4-3, in the first round. They dropped the final two matches to Harvard (4-3) and UNC (6-1).

Each team plays a minimum of three matches.

TCU opens dual match play on Feb. 20 with contests scheduled against Texas State and UT-Arlington at home.

--gofrogs.com--