Cowgirls Head To Athens For ITA Kickoff Weekend

Oklahoma State's women's tennis team travels to Athens, Ga., this weekend to compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Kickoff Weekend. ITA Kickoff Weekend is held at several different sites around the nation, each site hosting a field of four teams. The other teams that will be competing at the Athens site include Georgia State, Columbia and the host team, Georgia.

Second seeded Oklahoma State will open ITA Kickoff Weekend playing Georgia State, the No. 3 seed, on Sunday, Jan. 27 at 9 a.m. CT. Georgia will meet the No. 4 seed, Columbia, later that day. The winners will come back the following day to play for a berth at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.

Last Time Out

Oklahoma State is coming off of a big win over Wichita State in Wichita, Kan., last weekend. The Cowgirls were dominant throughout, and notched a 7-0 sweep of the Shockers.

Doubles | Order of finish: 3,1,2

Rose/Narattana (OSU) def. Blaskova/Kovalova (WSU) 8-6

Blevins/Guttormsen (OSU) def. Venticinque/Pedrazzi (WSU) 8-5

Blasco Fernandez/Mahajaroenkul (WSU) def. Alvarez/Gheorghe (OSU) 8-4

Singles | Order of finish: 1,2,4,3,5,6

Malika Rose (OSU) def. Lucia Kovalova (WSU) 6-3, 6-2

Meghan Blevins (OSU) def. Rebecca Pedrazzi (WSU) 6-3, 6-2

C.C. Sardinha (OSU) def. Satjaporn Mahajaroenkul (WSU) 0-6, 6-4, (10-8)

Maria Alvarez (OSU) def. Veronika Blaskova (WSU) 6-4, 6-1

Kanyapat Narattana (OSU) def. Carla Venticinque (WSU) 4-6, 6-1, (10-5)

Lorena Gheorghe (OSU) def. Montse Blasco Fernandez (WSU) 6-3, 6-2

Matchup History

Sunday will mark the first time in program history that Oklahoma State and Georgia State have met. If OSU and Georgia meet in the Cowgirls' second match of the weekend it will mark the 13th time the programs have met. Georgia holds a 7-5 advantage in those meetings. If the Cowgirls are matched with Columbia in their second match, it will be the first time the two programs have met.

Clean Sweep

With their 7-0 victory over Wichita State on Monday, the Cowgirl Tennis team recorded their first sweep since their 6-0 victory over Oral Roberts on Mar. 11, 2011.

Cowgirls in the Rankings

Oklahoma State remains the No. 40 ranked women's tennis team in the nation, according to the latest rankings that were released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association on Tuesday, Jan. 22.

The Cowgirls were represented in the ITA singles and doubles rankings as well. The doubles team made up of senior C.C. Sardinha and sophomore Meghan Blevins earned the 39th ranking in doubles. Blevins also made an appearance in the singles rankings, coming in at 89th.

Eyeing the Opponents

The Athens ITA Kickoff Weekend site boasts a powerful field, with all four teams competing making an appearance in the latest ITA team rankings. Each team also has at least one player ranked in the ITA singles rankings and one doubles team ranked in the doubles rankings.

The Georgia Bulldogs own the field's highest ranking, coming in at No. 6 in the ITA team rankings. The Bulldogs' roster includes four ranked singles players (No. 76 Makenzie Craft, No. 54 Kate Fuller, No. 8 Lauren Herring and No. 18 Maho Kowase) and two ranked doubles teams (No. 15 Fuller/Herring and No. 22 Kimbell/Kowase).

Columbia comes into ITA Kickoff Weekend ranked as the No. 73 team in the nation with three players ranked in singles (No. 24 Nicole Bartnik, No. 81 Biana Sanon and No.85 Kanika Vaidya) and one ranked doubles team (No. 37 Sanon/Takenaga) on its roster.

Georgia State currently sits at No. 70 in the ITA team rankings. The Panthers bring one ranked singles player (No. 29 Abigail Tere-Apisah) and one ranked doubles team (No. 19 Grgan/Tere-Apisah) into ITA Kickoff Weekend.

Climbing the Record Books

With two more singles victories, Cowgirl senior Malika Rose can claim the tenth spot on the school's all-time singles wins list. Rose has 54 singles wins in her career going into her final spring season, and currently sits at No. 11 on the list behind Martina Hautova, who had 55 singles wins during her time at Oklahoma State.

Aiming for the Tournament

After earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament in 2012, Oklahoma State enters the spring season looking to make back-to-back tournament appearances for the first time since the 1990-91 seasons.