Hurricanes Ranked 10th to Start Season
Jan. 10, 2006
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami women’s tennis team opens the 2006 dual-match season ranked 10th in the Preseason Fila Collegiate Tennis Rankings that are administered by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), it was announced Tuesday.
The first team rankings of the season saw perennial powers Stanford, Florida and Texas ranked in the top three, respectively. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) placed five teams in the Top 20 and six in the Top 25.
This season, the Hurricanes will face 15 teams that are ranked in the Top 75, eight of which are among the Top 25.
“This is probably one of the tougher schedules that we’ve had in the past five years,” said head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews. “I’m excited about the competition leading up to the NCAA Championships because I think that in previous years sometimes our late season competition has kept us from being ready to go the second week in May. This year things will be a little bit different simply because our schedule is a lot more difficult.”
Tough competition will begin early for the Hurricanes this year when they travel to Madison, Wis. for the ITA National Team Indoor Championships on Feb. 3-5. There, Miami will face Top 10 teams including two-time defending national champion Stanford and NCAA finalist Texas, to name a few.
“We’re going to be playing teams that are top 10 in the country in early February at the ITA Team Indoor Championships,” said Yaroshuk-Tews. “That’s going to be a good barometer to where we are as a team.”
Yaroshuk-Tews relishes the early competition and the lessons it will teach her team, “I hope we play Stanford in the first round of the Team Indoor Championships so that they see what the top is like. They will be able to see what a national championship team consists of. Stanford is a team that displays unity, talent and competitiveness year in and year out.”
Miami will return to Coral Gables to face in-state rival Florida, Feb.12, at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center. The second ranked Gators field five players who were ranked in the preseason singles rankings, including the No. 1 ranked singles player Diana Srebrovic.
Yaroshuk-Tews is eager to see which one of her players will step up to both the physical and mental challenge of facing such a talented Florida team.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what players on our team are going to step up against a program that battles you mentally and physically,” she said. “They fight and battle just as hard mentally as they do physically. This match is going to be a good indicator of where our players are as individuals. We’ll be able to see who fights the battle and who backs away from the battle. A match like this isn’t won on tennis alone.”
Yaroshuk-Tews concedes that what makes the Gators such a difficult team to play is not solely their talent but their fight which makes them one of the premier teams in the country. She adds, “There are a lot of teams that are talented but not a lot of them fight as well as they fight. That’s why this match will be a good indicator to see where certain players are as competitors not simply as tennis players.”
Besides the grueling ACC schedule that will see Miami host No. 11 North Carolina, No. 16 Clemson, No. 14 Duke and defending ACC Champion No. 4 Georgia Tech, the Hurricanes will welcome No. 13 Kentucky, No. 28 Pepperdine and No. 52 Denver to the Neil Schiff Tennis Center.
Following the home match against Kentucky on Feb. 23, Miami will face third ranked Texas in Austin on Feb. 26. The Longhorns reached the NCAA Team Championship final last season.
Though the Hurricanes will rely on their talent to traverse their difficult schedule, Yaroshuk-Tews is quick to note that while the talent is palpable whether or not this team will succeed depends on how they come together as a team.
“I have higher expectations for this team than I have had for any team that I’ve coached,” Yaroshuk-Tews said. “This is by far the most talented team that I have ever coached, top to bottom. The key to this program’s success will be how well they work together.”
Talent, however, can be both a blessing and a curse. It can mean the difference between a good team and one that is great. How far this team goes, according to Yaroshuk-Tews, is going to be based on a healthy balance of talent and teamwork.
Leading the team will be All-American junior Audrey Banada and All-American sophomore transfer Audra Cohen.
Banada was ranked 40th in the preseason singles rankings. She finished the fall season 9-3 record and claimed the ITA South Region Singles Consolation during fall play. Last season, Banada and former Miami standout Megan Bradley reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Doubles Championship marking the first time a Miami tandem has done so since 1992.
Cohen, arguably one of the best players in the nation, did not receive a preseason ranking as a result of not playing the fall season while recovering from an injury. Cohen will be head-up the lineup at the No. 1 position in both singles and doubles.
Cohen, who transferred from Northwestern, is coming of a freshman season where she reached the finals of the NCAA Singles Championship. She was named the ITA National Rookie of the Year and became one of only eight players to notch at least 50 victories in the modern era of NCAA Division I Women’s Tennis (since 1988). Her 51-7 overall record ties her for third all-time in the modern era.
Banda and Cohen are joined by senior Melissa Applebaum, juniors Emily Mowery and Ana Rupic, sophomores Caren Seenauth and Patricia Starzyk and freshman Monika Dancevic.
“I told them that they sail their own ship,” Yaroshuk-Tews said. “It’s up to them and its going to depend on unity rather than talent.”
