Canes to Face Gators in Elite Eight
May 18, 2012
ATHENS, Ga. – The University of Miami women’s tennis team will see a familiar opponent when it faces the Florida Gators in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex Saturday at 4 p.m.
The meeting with second-seeded Florida will be the third straight season the teams have met in NCAA quarterfinal. The Canes will look to return the favor for its previous two defeats and return to the Final Four for the fourth time in program history.
Last season, Miami was more than game against the top-ranked Gators, after falling behind 3-0, the Canes held late leads in the remaining four singles matches. However, UF eventually took the match at 4-1 in Stanford, Calif.
In the 2010 meeting, also held at the University of Georgia, the Hurricanes lost 4-0 to the then third-ranked Florida squad. Only current UM seniors, Gabriela Mejia and Anna Bartenstein were on the 2010 squad.
Tenth-seeded Miami advanced to Saturday’s highly anticipated match-up – its fourth consecutive Elite Eight appearance and sixth in its last seven seasons – with a 4-2 win over ACC foe North Carolina, avenging its regular season 4-3 loss to the Heels in April.
Thursday night, the Canes took the doubles point and won singles matches from No. 18 Bartenstein, sophomore Brittany Dubins and a three-set clincher from Melissa Bolivar.
Bolivar has been on a hot streak as of late, winning her last six singles matches since she lost to UNC’s Gina Suarez-Malaguti, the same woman she defeated on Thursday to send the Canes to the next round.
At the same time as the Miami-UNC match, UF took a 4-0 win from 15th-seeded Michigan.
Florida (24-1) features seven ranked singles players, including top-ranked Allie Will, No. 9 Lauren Embree, No. 21 Joanna Mather, No. 44 Ecaterina Vasenina, No. 61 Sofie Oyen, No. 79 Alex Cercone and No. 115 Caroline Hitimana. Will and Oyen team up as the top-ranked doubles squad, while Embree and Mather come in at No. 22 and Cercone and Olivia Janowicz are ranked 52nd.
Duke and Georgia will also be playing tomorrow at 4 p.m. with the winner set to take on the UM-UF winner in the NCAA National Semifinal, Monday at 1 p.m. The other side of the bracket features USC-Stanford and UCLA-Cal.
Saturday’s weather report call for mostly sunny skies with temperatures reaching the mid-80’s.
