LEXINGTON ? No. 3 Kentucky will learn its first-round opponent and site of its upcoming NCAA regional when the NCAA announces its women?s tennis tournament selections Wednesday.
The complete 64-team bracket will be announced live on ESPNews beginning at 4:30 p.m. EDT. The SEC-champion Wildcats are expected to grab the highest NCAA seed in the history of the program and likely will play host to a four-team regional beginning next Friday, May 13 at UK?s Boone Tennis Complex. ESPNews is available to Insight digital cable subscribers and also is found on DirecTV (channel 207) and DishNetwork (channel 142). ESPNews? audio signal is available via XM and SIRIUS satellite radio. The bracket will be posted on the ncaasports.com and ncaa.org web sites no later than 6 p.m. EDT.
The NCAA will post the qualifiers for the singles and doubles championships Thursday at ncaasports.com and ncaa.org no later than 6 p.m. EDT. The NCAA singles championships will begin on May 23 at Georgia?s Dan Magill Tennis Complex, and the doubles championships will kick off the following day.
Kentucky earned its third-consecutive trip to the NCAA round of 16 a season ago by defeating Boston and Ohio State at an NCAA regional in Cambridge, Mass before falling to eventual national champion Stanford.
Cats Maintain Solid Rankings
Kentucky remained at No. 3 for a second-consecutive week in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) rankings released Monday. Senior Aibika Kalsarieva held on to her No. 3 singles ranking for a third-consecutive week, and sophomore Kim Coventry moved up two spots to No. 30. Sophomore Sarah Foster made the biggest Wildcat jump of the week, climbing from No. 70 to No. 64. Kalsarieva and Foster moved up two spots to No. 7 in the doubles rankings, though Coventry and sophomore Joelle Schwenk dropped from No. 18 to No. 22.