EVANSTON, Ill. – No. 10 Auburn is set to begin play at the ITA National Team Indoor Championship on Friday in Evanston, Illinois, at the Combre Tennis Center. The Tigers qualified for their fourth consecutive appearance in the event after defeating San Diego and No. 11 USC during ITA Kickoff Weekend in Los Angeles in January.
“We want to be part of the elite teams in college tennis and we want to play for national titles,” said Auburn head coach Jordan Szabo. “I think it’s validation for the girls and me that we’re doing the right things. We’ve had a lot of success very quickly and I think it’s great for the girls to see that if you work hard and do the right things, anything can happen. We’re pumped up to be there, but we want to play well and make a name for ourselves so winning that first match is the most important thing.”
The ITA National Team Indoor Championship is comprised of 16 teams playing matches in both Evanston and Champaign, Illinois. Auburn, the five-seed, will play four-seeded Stanford on Friday to kick off the run event at 3:30 p.m. CT. If the Tigers are victorious over the Cardinal, they will face the winner of Georgia and Northwestern in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. The event’s semifinals will be held on Monday followed by the championship final on Tuesday.
Auburn will enter the event with an undefeated 8-0 record following the program’s highest ranked win since 2007 over No. 3 Oklahoma State on Saturday. Auburn junior Angella Okutoyi picked up SEC Player of the Week honors for her performance in the match, as she won in both singles and doubles. In singles, the Nairobi, Kenya native dropped the first set to No. 33 Gracie Epps but came back with a win in the second set before ultimately winning the match 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.
In the newest edition of the ITA national singles rankings that were released on Wednesday, DJ Bennett and Merna Refaat remained at No. 2 and No. 22, respectively. Okutoyi rose from No. 110 to No. 58. Two Auburn doubles teams also moved up in the latest rankings, as Bennett and Ava Hrastar are ranked No. 12 while Okuotyi and Refaat were tabbed No. 51.
No. 4 Stanford will enter the opening round with a 3-0 record with wins over Memphis and Ole Miss during ITA Kickoff Weekend. Three Cardinal players are ranked in the latest edition of the ITA national singles rankings including No. 8 Valerie Glozman. Glozman holds an overall singles record of 16-2 and has picked up a singles win in each of the team’s dual matches this season.
Stanford was the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Championship last season and advanced to the quarterfinals before falling to Georgia 4-1. The team finished with a 25-3 overall record and won the Pac-12 Championship in its final season as a member of the conference.
Live video of each match of the ITA National Team Indoor Championship will be available online through Playsight while a crosscourt broadcast will be available on Cracked Raquets’ YouTube channel.