AUBURN, Ala. – The No. 8 Auburn women's tennis team will play at home for the first time in three weeks with a pair of home SEC matches Friday and Sunday at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.
Auburn (14-2, 5-0 SEC) will face No. 33 Arkansas at 3 p.m. CT Friday before finishing off the weekend at noon CT Sunday against Missouri. Admission is free to all Auburn home tennis matches. Friday's match will feature a t-shirt giveaway, and fans can pick up an Auburn tennis koozie prior to Sunday's match.
"We're excited to get in front of our home crowd," Auburn head coach Caroline Lilley said. "We're excited for people to be excited about tennis. Both our men's and women's tennis teams are doing great, so it's nice to have people out at Yarbrough. It's fun for the girls to play in front of a big crowd, so we're looking forward to two good matches this weekend."
The Tigers are off to one of their best starts in program history at 5-0 in SEC play; only the 1993 team at 6-0 won more consecutive matches to begin league play. Last weekend, the Tigers swept a pair of road matches in the Magnolia State, earning a 5-2 win at Mississippi State and a 4-3 victory at Ole Miss.
"We came out and played some really good doubles against both Mississippi State and Ole Miss," Lilley said. "That really set a tone for the rest of the match. I was really proud of the way we responded to some adversity (at State). Then we got ourselves in a really good spot to start the singles (at Ole Miss) and just competed. Both those teams are gritty, talented and have a lot of experience. Really proud of our kids and how they stepped up to a lot of challenges last weekend."
New team and individual rankings were released this week as well. Auburn remains in the top 10 as a team, coming in at No. 8. In singles, sophomore Ariana Arseneault is ranked 59th, junior Selin Ovunc is 65th and junior Carolyn Ansari jumped up to No. 81. Arseneault and Ovunc check in at No. 22 in the doubles rankings.
Arkansas (11-4, 4-1 SEC) has been playing well of late, running their win streak to seven matches before falling at home to Florida last Sunday. The Razorbacks boast one ranked doubles team in No. 53 Morgan Cross and Tatum Rice.
Missouri (6-12, 1-4) dropped a pair of matches last weekend to Florida and South Carolina. The Tigers will face Alabama on Friday before coming to the Plains for Sunday's match.
Live video and live scoring for both matches are available at AuburnTigers.com. In addition, fans can follow SEC Redzone from Cracked Racquets for all of Friday's SEC matches. Links to all coverage are available on the schedule page at AuburnTigers.com.
For the latest on Auburn women's tennis, follow @AuburnWTennis on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Home weekend for No. 8 Auburn vs. Arkansas, Missouri
