Southwest Regional Draws
TUCSON, Ariz. – The University of Arizona women’s tennis team returns to action for the first time in two weeks, as it will send three athletes to the ITA Southwest Regional Championships this weekend in San Diego, California.
Competition begins on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. MST inside the Barnes Tennis Center and will conclude on Monday with the doubles and singles winners earning automatic entries into the ITA National Indoor Championships on Nov. 6-9 in Flushing, New York.
Junior Shayne Austin, freshman Hanna Sohn, and sophomore Lauren Marker will represent the Cats this weekend, as they’ll take on some of the very best players in the Southwest region. Marker enters regional championship play as the top-ranked Wildcat, as she’s currently placed at No. 58 in the country according to the ITA’s preseason singles poll. Marker picked up her second ranked victory of her career last time out, defeating TCU’s No. 31 Stefanie Tan in dramatic fashion, 2-6, 6-0, 6-2 two weeks ago at the Riviera/ ITA Women’s All-American Championships.
Sohn and Austin also enter the event riding some positive momentum of their own , as the two combined to rattle off four consecutive wins en route to a doubles tournament championship, while Sohn posted a dominating 3-1 mark in singles action a couple of weeks ago at the Wildcat Invitational.
Arizona will go up against six ranked squads from a year ago, in No. 1 and defending national champion UCLA, No. 16 USC, No. 24 Pepperdine, No. 32 Arizona State, No. 40 Long Beach State, and No. 70 UC Irvine.
Athletes from UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, San Diego State, San Diego, Hawaii, Loyola Marymount, and Grand Canyon will also join the Cats this weekend. Arizona finished the 2014 spring campaign ranked No. 33 in the final ITA poll.
FOLLOW THE WILDCATS!
Fans can keep up with the latest in Arizona athletics by following us on Facebook (Facebook.com/ArizonaAthletics), Twitter (@AZATHLETICS), Instagram (azathletics) and YouTube.com (Youtube.com/ArizonaAthletics). In addition, the women's tennis team has established its own official Facebook (Facebook.com/ArizonaWomensTennis), Twitter (@ArizonaWTennis), and Instagram (ArizonaWTennis) accounts.
