The Kentucky women?s tennis program has found itself ranked among the top-five teams in college tennis once again after picking up its first-ever victory over perennial-power Florida on Sunday.

The Cats moved up two spots to No. 4 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) team rankings released this afternoon after exiting the top five four weeks ago. Kentucky earned a program-best No. 3 ranking on Feb. 8 after defeating top-ten foes Clemson, North Carolina and Duke at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships. UK slipped to No. 7 the following weekend after falling to North Carolina in Chapel Hill without top player Aibika Kalsarieva, who missed the match due to an illness.

The 2005 Kentucky (15-3, 4-0 SEC) team is the first Wildcat squad with three student-athletes featured in the top 50 of the ITA singles rankings and two doubles pairs in the top 15 of the ITA doubles rankings at the same time. UK features the eighth-ranked Kalsarieva, 33rd-ranked sophomore Kim Coventry and 42nd-ranked sophomore Sarah Foster. Kalsarieva and Foster form the nation?s sixth-ranked doubles tandem, and sophomore Joelle Schwenk joins Coventry to solidify the ITA?s 12th-ranked doubles duo.

Only defending national-champion Stanford can claim as many student-athletes in the ITA top-50 singles rankings as Kentucky. UK joins Florida, the 2003 NCAA Champion, as the only teams with two doubles pairs featured in the top 15 of the ITA doubles rankings.

Kentucky will take the week off before returning to action on Friday, Mar. 25 against LSU.

ITA Team Rankings ? Mar. 15, 2005

1. Stanford 2. Georgia 3. Northwestern 4. Kentucky 5. Vanderbilt 6. William & Mary 7. Duke 8. Southern California 9. North Carolina 10. Miami (Fla.) 11. Harvard 12. UCLA 13. Texas 14. Washington 15. Florida 16. Georgia Tech 17. Baylor 18. California 19. Clemson 20. Tulane 21. TCU 22. BYU 23. Tennessee 24. South Carolina 25. Notre Dame