April 12, 2000
ON TAP: The ninth-ranked Arizona State women's tennis team (11-5, 3-2 Pac-10) will close out its regular season with three Pac-10 road matches. This weekend's contests take the Sun Devils to the Bay Area, taking on California on Fri., April 14 and Stanford on Sat., April 15. The match against the Bears will take place at the Hellman Tennis Center at 1:30 p.m. while the Cardinal will host the Sun Devils at their Taube Family Tennis Stadium at noon.
THE OPPONENTS: Fourth-ranked California holds a 14-5 overall record, 3-1 in the Pac-10, losing its first conference match to Bay Area rival Stanford on April 11. Arizona State is one of only three teams to have beaten the Bears ? joining Stanford and Pepperdine ? as the Sun Devils defeated then second-ranked Cal 5-4 in Tempe on March 4. The Bears are led by 21st-ranked Amy Jensen, No. 26 Anita Kurimay and No. 70 Claire Curran. Cal is formidable in doubles competition with two tandems ranked in the top five. Jensen and Curran are currently third best in the country while Kurimay and Karoline Borgersen are ranked fifth.
Top-ranked Stanford has not lost a match in 37 tries, dating back to February of last year. The team is 21-0 on the season and host Arizona on Friday before taking on the Sun Devils. One of those wins was a 6-1 decision over ASU last month in Tempe. Stanford's entire lineup is ranked, holding three of the nation's top nine players. The lineup is No. 2 Marissa Irvin, No. 3 Laura Granville, No.9 Lauren Kalvaria, No. 40 Keiko Tokuda, No. 47 Teryn Ashley and No. 82 Gabriela Lastra. Ashley and Irvin are ranked seventh in doubles, Granville and Tokuda are eighth, while Ashley and Granville are ranked 25th.
STREAKING: Since Arizona State began keeping team records in 1967, the Sun Devls have only had one losing season in those 33 years. Losing streaks are hard to come by for such an established program, which made this year's recent three-match skid something to talk about. ASU dropped consecutive matches to USC, Texas and Washington before defeating Washington State on April 8. The last time the Sun Devils dropped three straight was at the end of the 1997-98 season, falling to Texas, Stanford and California. Dating back to 1986, the Lady Devils' longest win drought was six matches, occurring in both the 1987 and '89 seasons.
IN THE PAC: The Sun Devils are playing in the toughest conference in the country. All six of the southern Pac-10 schools are ranked in the top 18, four of which are in the top 10. Stanford and California are ranked first and fourth, respectively, while UCLA is eighth and Arizona State holds down ninth. USC is 11th, followed by Arizona in the 18th spot. The northern Pac-10 schools are not far behind. Washington is ranked 22nd, Oregon is 53rd and Washington State is 61st. Individually, five of the top 10 players ? including the top three ? come from our conference and in the 100 athletes that are ranked, 22 hail from the Pac-10. That same ratio is found in the doubles rankings, where five leage tandems are in the top 10 and 10 are in the top 50.
IN THE RANKINGS: Although the Sun Devils' stay at the No. 2 spot in the country lasted briefly, as a miscalculation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association moved the squad one spot too high, the No. 3 ranking ASU earned in the March 22 edition was the program's highest ever. During the previous week, the team moved from No. 7 to No. 4 surpassing the program's previous highest ranking, a No. 6 mark achieved during the 1997 season. After three consecutive losses, the squad is currently ranked ninth. Individual rankings were published on April 12, placing injured sophomore Allison Bradshaw down three spots to 15th-best in the country. Junior Karin Palme vaulted up to No. 28 from her 70th-place just two weeks ago and is currently 36th. Freshman Megan Yeats improved one spot and is now ranked 60th. In doubles, the tandem of Bradshaw and Celena McCoury are ranked 21st, despite not playing together since February. A second duo debuted this week, as Yeats and Mhairi Brown are ranked 44th.
LAST WEEK'S ACTION: The squad went 1-1 in Pac-10 play, falling to 34th-ranked Washington before topping 54th-ranked Washington State.
With injuries to 12th-ranked Allison Bradshaw and senior Kerry Giardino in the Sun Devil lineup, ASU was only able to field five players for both matches. The deficiency automatically defaulted wins at the No. 6 singles and the No. 3 doubles courts, giving the Huskies and the Cougars a 2-0 advantage before the contests even began.
With the deficit against Washington, the Sun Devils would have to win three of the five singles matches to keep alive a chance at victory. Washington took the first win by top-ranked Kristina Kraszewski over No. 28 Karin Palme on the first court but ASU countered with a win on court four by 61st-ranked Megan Yeats over No. 88 Zuzana Stunova. Mhairi Brown won on court three for the Lady Devils before teammate Faye DeVera fell on court two. Brown was taken to three sets for only the second time this season. Both occasions earned victories.
Junior Celena McCoury secured the first set for the home team 7-5 over Husky Colleen Gray. McCoury was then up 5-2 in the second-set tiebreaker before dropping the frame at 7-5. She took a 4-1 lead in the third but Gray came back to win five of the next six sets for a 6-5 lead. McCoury tied the set at six games and captured the match victory on her third match point for a 10-8 tiebreaker score. The match lasted 3 hours, 20 minutes.
McCoury's win kept the Sun Devils alive, although they were still down 4-3 heading into doubles action, Brown and McCoury played together for the first time this season on court one an upset the 43rd-ranked team of Kraszewski and Klaic 8-3, but Palme and DeVera couldn't grab a must need doubles sweep, falling 8-4 to Kordonskaya and Wagner and ceding the match to the Huskies 5-4.
The team was able to break its three match losing streak the following afternoon vs. Washington State. The Sun Devils swept the singles matches it did field players for, winning on courts one through four in straight sets. Yeats picked up her 13th consecutive victory on court three. On court four, Brown earned her 20th win on the season while on court five, McCoury completed her fourth straight three-set match, defeating the Cougars' Moniek van de Ven 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-1.
Despite earning the team victory during singles play, doubles matches were contested, with ASU winning both contests.
THE COACH CLAIMS 250TH WIN: Sheila McInerney, in her 16th season at the helm of the Sun Devil program, earned her 250th career win as ASU defeated Oregon on Feb. 19. McInerney, who is averaging 16 wins per season, has led her team the past two seasons to back-to-back NCAA Round of 16 finishes. ASU has made NCAA appearances in 14 of McInerney's 15 seasons, including six quarterfinal finishes. During her tenure at ASU, the 1997 ITA National Coach of the Year owns a 255-151 record and has been a two-time ITA/West Region Coach of the Year honoree. Additionally, McInerney has tutored 18 Sun Devil All-Americans, 11 All-Pac-10 players and 22 conference All-Academic honorees.
ALLISON BRADSHAW: Although currently sidelined by a foot injury, Allison Bradshaw is the highest ranked player for the Sun Devils in the ITA standings, 15th-best in the country. She and teammate Celena McCoury are the only doubles tandem ranked on the squad and are currently 23rd. Bradshaw has played the No. 1 spot for the Sun Devils all season and is 6-2 in dual matches and is 14-4 overall. The sophomore from San Diego, Calif., played in the ITA Summer Championships, making her way to the third round before retiring due to injury. As a freshman in 1998-99, Bradshaw earned All-America honors in singles and doubles, receiving a top-16 seed in the NCAA Championship singles tournament and a top-8 seed, with former teammate Katy Propstra, in the doubles competition. She currently carries 45-20 career record.
KARIN PALME: Junior Karin Palme, from Guadalajara, Mexico, brings international experience to the Sun Devil squad due to her appearances in the 1998 Fed Cup, 1998 Central American Games and 1995 Pan American Games representing Mexico. Ranked 36th by the ITA, she currently carries a 9-7 dual, 17-10 overall record, playing mostly in the No. 2 spot during singles competition. She is 3-5 vs. ranked oppoents at the No. 1 position, where she has been playing in place of the injured Bradshaw. Palme is 49-34 in her singles career. She and teammate Kerry Giardino are undefeated in doubles compeition this season, 9-0 in dual matches, 10-0 overall at the No. 3 spot.
FRESHMEN OF INFLUENCE: Freshmen Mhairi Brown and Megan Yeats are the only members on the team to notch 20 wins on the season as Brown reached the milestone vs. Washington State last weekend. Yeats currently posts a team-high 14-1 dual record while Brown is 12-3. Yeats is currently ranked 60th in the country and has an overall mark of 23-6, winning 18 of her last 19 matches ? inlcuding a current 13-match win streak. Brown boasts a 20-7 overall mark, second on the team. Her 10-match win streak was halted by Stanford's Gabriela Lastra on March 3. Both records are divided among the third through sixth spots. The pair also team up at the No. 2 doubles position where they have posted a 5-2 dual mark and are 13-6 overall. They debuted in this week's edition of ITA Rankings at No. 44.
HOME SWEET HOME: The Sun Devil tennis program began the season with the new Robson Player Facility. Located on the southwest corner of the existing Whiteman Tennis Center, the spacious facility features new player locker rooms, offices, a training room and a shaded viewing terrace for spectators. Arizona State posted a 8-3 record this year, and over the past four seasons, is 46-16 (.742) when playing in Tempe. This season's losses came to sixth-ranked UCLA on Jan. 29, top-ranked Stanford on March 3 and No. 34 Washington on April 7.
ITA RANKINGS
Team
as of April 12, 2000
| Rk. | Team | Record |
| 1. | Stanford | 21-0 |
| 2. | Wake Forest | 16-1 |
| 3. | Georgia | 16-1 |
| 4. | California | 14-5 |
| 5. | Pepperdine | 19-4 |
| 6. | Florida | 18-1 |
| 7. | Texas | 14-5 |
| 8. | UCLA | 11-7 |
| 9. | ARIZONA STATE | 11-5 |
| 10. | Vanderbilt | 18-3 |
| 11. | USC | 13-6 |
| 12. | Duke | 16-5 |
| 13. | Notre Dame | 17-5 |
| 14. | South Alabama | 16-3 |
| 15. | Mississippi | 14-6 |
| 16. | Northwestern | 15-4 |
| 17. | William & Mary | 15-8 |
| 18. | Arizona | 9-8 |
| 19. | Baylor | 18-2 |
| 20. | South Carolina | 14-8 |
| 21. | Tennessee | 14-10 |
| 22. | Washington | 11-7 |
| 23. | Florida State | 15-6 |
| 24. | TCU | 16-4 |
| 25. | Ohio State | 12-6 |
Individual
as of April 12, 2000
Singles
| Rk. | Name | Team |
| 1. | Kristina Kraszewski | Washington |
| 2. | Marissa Irvin | Stanford |
| 3. | Laura Granville | Stanford |
| 4. | Zuzana Lesenarova | San Diego |
| 5. | Adria Engel | Wake Forest |
| 15. | Alison Bradshaw | Arizona State |
| 36. | Karin Palme | Arizona State |
| 60. | Megan Yeats | Arizona State |
Doubles
| Rk. | Name | Team | |
| 1. | Lesenarova/Valykova | San Diego | |
| 2. | Catlin/Grey | Georgia | |
| 3. | Curran/Jensen | California | |
| 4. | Senoglu/Palencia | Pepperdine | |
| 5. | Borgersen/Kurimay | California | |
| 23. | Bradshaw/McCoury | Arizona State | |
| 44. | Yeats/Brown | Arizona State |