AUBURN, Ala. – No. 11 Auburn will make a Florida swing over the weekend, facing No. 13 Pepperdine in a neutral site match in Orlando, Florida, on Friday followed by a match against USF in Tampa on Sunday.
"We learned a lot from our last match at Texas," said Auburn head coach Lester Cook. "We aren't perfect yet, but we're working toward the end of the year when we have big tournaments. This is the last of our big travel days, but hopefully we'll get to play in some warm weather this weekend before we get into the groove of the SEC schedule."
The bright spot of Auburn's last match against Texas was the team's dominant doubles point. The Tigers' new doubles lineup included Ariana Arseneault and DJ Bennett for the first time this season on court one, Carolyn Ansari and Selin Ovunc up one spot on the lineup card playing No. 2 and Adeline Flach and Ava Esposito Cogan who had not played together since October on court three. Auburn won the doubles point with a 6-1 victory on court one and a 6-4 win on court two.
Despite the match loss, Auburn moved up in the latest ITA team rankings, coming in at 11th. The newest individual rankings that were released on Tuesday featured four ranked singles players, led by Ansari at No. 16, as well as two doubles teams.
Pepperdine is ranked just below the Tigers at No. 13 with a 4-2 record this season. The team is coming off two consecutive victories at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships over 15th ranked California and 16th ranked USC. Last season, Auburn defeated Pepperdine 4-2 at the ITA Indoor Championships.
Lisa Zarr, who has played every match at the top of the Waves' singles lineup, holds a perfect 5-0 dual record and is ranked No. 13 in singles. Savannah Broadus, who regularly plays at No. 2 in the singles lineup but is Pepperdine's highest ranked singles player at eighth in the country, has a 15-7 overall record this season. The Waves also have the No. 3 doubles team in the nation made up of Broadus and Janice Tjen.
Auburn's Sunday opponent, USF, will enter the match with a 4-5 record this season. The most recent meeting between the two schools was 2021, when the Tigers won 4-1 at the Yarbrough Tennis Center.
Auburn's match against Pepperdine will be played at the USTA National Tennis Center and is scheduled to begin at noon CT on Friday. The Tigers' second match of the weekend against USF will begin at 11 a.m. CT in Tampa.
Live video of the Friday match will be available online at ustanationalcampus.com while live video and live scoring of Sunday's match will be available online at gousfbulls.com.