The 14th-ranked Kentucky women?s tennis squad begins its run for an NCAA team title Tuesday when the Cats welcome No. 60 Marshall and Louisville to the Boone Indoor Tennis Center on the UK campus. Kentucky takes on the Thundering Herd at 1 p.m. EST before meeting Louisville at 6 p.m. EST.
Kentucky returns all nine letter winners from the 2003-04 squad that totaled a 19-12 record and went to the NCAA round of 16 before falling to eventual national champion Stanford. Coach Mark Guilbeau returns for his ninth season in Lexington with a team poised to reach new heights. Leading the way for Kentucky is senior All-American Aibika Kalsarieva. In just her first season of NCAA tennis after transferring from the NAIA?s Lewis-Clark State, Kalsarieva totaled a 40-14 overall singles record, earned an All-SEC selection and became the first Wildcat to reach the quarterfinals of the NCAA singles championships. The Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan native enters dual-match season with a No. 7 singles ranking, marking the highest ranking in the history of the Kentucky program. She teams with sophomore Sarah Foster to form the nation?s seventh-ranked doubles tandem.
Foster, the reigning SEC Freshman of the Year and ITA Southeast Region Rookie of the Year, enjoyed a 20-7 dual-match record a season ago and enters the 2005 season with a No. 30 singles ranking. Her victory over Georgia?s Shadisha Robinson at the 2004 SEC Tournament clinched Kentucky?s 4-1 upset win over the fourth-ranked Dogs. The Lexington Christian Academy product joined Kalsarieva at the 2004 NCAA singles and doubles championships and could enter the ITA top-25 singles rankings with a solid early dual-match showing. Joining her on the 2005 squad is her sister, senior Emil y Foster, who redshirted a season ago.
Kentucky figures to benefit from a rejuvenated Kim Coventry in 2005. The native Australian compiled a 4-12 record last spring after joining the team in January of 2004. One of seven sophomores on the 2005 squad, Coventry took the collegiate tennis circuit by storm over the fall by totaling 15 victories, including a win over Ole Miss? 43rd-ranked Chloe Carlotti. Coventry made her debut in the singles rankings at No. 58 and after enjoying a strong fall doubles season with sophomore Joelle Schwenk, she also holds a No. 11 doubles ranking. With Schwenk and Coventry joining the nation?s elite in women?s doubles, Kentucky is the only school in the country with two doubles pairs ranked in the top-11 of the ITA doubles rankings.
Schwenk, a Coconut Creek, Fla., native, defeated three top-100 opponents over the fall and is on the verge of becoming the fourth Wildcat to land in the ITA singles rankings. Guilbeau will have many choices to round out the bottom half of his lineup after witnessing junior Danielle Petrisko and sophomores Lara Maurer, Christine Simpson, Liis Sober and Caroline Winebrenner turn in strong performances in fall tournaments. Freshman Kelly Compton rounds out a young, yet experienced 2005 roster.
Scoring updates from each of Tuesday?s matches will be available on the front page of ukathletics.com. The Cats head to Texas later this week for a pair of matches against No. 16 Texas A&M and No. 5 Northwestern.
