We start the weekend off on Thursday with a bang with two huge match-ups; North Carolina at Wake Forest and Florida State at Duke. North Carolina lost to a hot Georgia Tech last weekend but held on to the No. 1 ranking but will be severely tested in Winston Salem against a very strong Wake Forest squad. Florida State knocked off No. 14 Wake Forest last weekend and this weekend faces No. 4 Duke and No. 18 Virginia.
NC State checked in at No. 42 in this weeks rankings and hits the road to take on Clemson on Friday and then Va. Tech in Blacksburg on Saturday.
BC has had a good couple of weeks and is rewarded by entering the ITA rankings at No. 50 which is no small feat after being winless in conference a scant two weeks ago. They travel to Blacksburg, as well, for a match on Friday, and then wind up the weekend on Sunday in Pittsburgh for a date with the Pitt Panthers.
Georgia Tech were the big movers of the week, of course, with their huge win over top-ranked North Carolina. They are currently ranked No. 3 in the most recent ITA rankings and host Notre Dame on Friday before traveling to Syracuse Sunday to face a team that is playing very well at the moment and could potentially cause them some problems.
Louisville needs a big win badly after getting off to a rough start on their road trip, dropping both matches last weekend, to BC and Syracuse. I dont see then giving Duke much of a problem Saturday, but you never know. Syracuse is playing good tennis at the moment and a win against Ga Tech on Sunday would be massive for them. I also dont see this happening, but again.ya never know.
Weekly Schedule
News and Notes
Kelly Chen (Duke) earns ACC Freshmen of the Week for the fifth time this season.
Former UVa standout, NCAA singles Champion, Danielle Collins is in the midst of an amazing run in Miami at the BNP Paribas tournament. She is now in the semis, after beating Venus Williams this evening 6-2, 6-3.
There is the distinct possibility that only one of last years final 4 will host a regional. Certainly, OSU will not and Stanford's schedule is so weak, it will be hard to move much higher. Florida too is in difficult spot particularly if they lose to Vandy and South Carolina. That potentially leaves Vandy as the only final 4 team to host a regional this year.
You're right about Stanford – they only had three big non-conference matches and they lost them all and the Pac-12 is lacking with Cal being way down and USC not fairing much better.