No. 3 Kentucky begins another road trip this weekend against a familiar foe after a sterling performance last week at the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships. UK takes on No. 13 North Carolina Saturday at UNC?s Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center at 1 p.m. EST before meeting Minnesota on Sunday, also in Chapel Hill.
Kentucky defeated North Carolina by a 5-2 count last Friday in the quarterfinals of the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships, which allowed UK to advance to the semifinals of the event for the first time in the program?s history. The win avenged a 6-1 loss to UNC a year ago in Lexington.
UNC features 26th-ranked senior Aniela Mojzis and 37th-ranked Kendall Cline, and the two join together to form the nation?s 14th-ranked doubles tandem. Kentucky, with the sixth-ranked duo of Sarah Foster and Aibika Kalsarieva and the 11th-ranked pair of Kim Coventry and Joelle Schwenk, is the only school in the nation with two doubles pairs ranked in the top-12 of the ITA doubles rankings. Kalsarieva comes in at No. 7 in singles play, while Foster and Coventry are ranked Nos. 30 and 58, respectively, in singles.
Kentucky owns a 13-3 series advantage against the Tar Heels.