May 8, 2014
NCAA Tournament Central | Live Stats | NCAA Bracket | Tech Tournament Notes | Practice Day Photo Gallery
The #19 Georgia Tech women’s tennis team (13-9) heads to Nashville to face #39 Purdue in the first round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament on Friday at 10 a.m. CT/ 11 a.m. ET. at the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Tennis Center on Vanderbilt’s campus.
Live stats for the match can be found here.
Sweet 15
This will be the 15th overall and 15th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance for the Yellow Jackets. Tech has advanced to the Sweet 16 seven times and won the 2007 national title. The NCAA Championships will begin May 15 in Athens, Ga. at the University of Georgia.
The Yellow Jackets are 13-1 in first round matches in the NCAA Tournament and have won the past 12-straight first round matches.
Tech’s Path to the Tournament
Tech heads into the tournament after winning six of their last nine matches, including a 4-3 upset of #1 Duke. The Yellow Jackets defeated #59 Virginia Tech, 4-0, in the first round of the ACC Tournament before falling to eventual tournament-champions, #7 Virginia, 4-1.
Senior Muriel Wacker has won a team-high 16 singles match this dual match season and is 12-2 in conference play. Sophomore Megan Kurey is 12-6 in dual matches and is 4-1 when playing on court two. Freshman Rasheeda McAdoo is on a six-match winning streak and has gone 8-5 at the number four spot.
In doubles, #6-ranked Kurey and Kendal Woodard are 12-5 at the number one spot and they went 8-3 in ACC play. Sophomore Natasha Prokhnevska and Wacker are 10-9 on court two and own a 3-2 record against nationally ranked opponents. The freshman duo of McAdoo and Alexa Anton-Ohlmeyer are 10-6 on court three and are 6-4 in their last 10 matches.
Scouting Purdue
This will be the first meeting in the history of the program between Georgia Tech and Purdue. Purdue went 12-10 overall this year and 8-5 in the Big Ten. This will be the third-straight appearance in the NCAA Championship for the Boilermakers and seventh in program history. Two Boilermaker doubles teams check into the ITA Rankings with Kriszina Kapitany and Mara Schmidt coming in at #63 while Schmidt and Andjela Djokovic are ranked #72.
Déjà vu
This will be the second time during the 2013-14 season that the Jackets will travel to Nashville to Vanderbilt. Tech competed in the June Stewart Invitational that was hosted by the Commodores in October. The Jackets also faced Vanderbilt in the beginning of the season at the ITA Kickoff Weekend in the Nebraska regional finals. The Commodores edged the Jackets, 4-3, during the meeting.
A Look at the Nashville Regional
Also in the Nashville region are host Vanderbilt (19-6) and Murray State (16-5). Vanderbilt enters the NCAA tournament ranked #10 and the tournaments overall nine seed. Vanderbilt holds the lead in the overall record against the Jackets, 12-5. While Vanderbilt won the last two matches, the Jackets won the previous three matches from 2009-11. Murray State is 16-5 on the season and won the Ohio Valley tournament. Georgia Tech holds a 1-0 record against Murray State, even though the teams have not yet met on the court. On March 3, 1990 Murray State forfeited the match against the Jackets.
Kurey, Woodard Receive 6 Seed in NCAA Doubles Championship
Sophomores Megan Kurey and Kendal Woodard of the Georgia Tech women’s tennis team have earned an at-large bid to the 2014 NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships to be held May 21-26 at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga. The duo will be the number six seed in the doubles field. Kurey and Woodard are Tech’s 10th doubles team to earn a bid to the NCAA Doubles Championship. The duo is currently ranked as the #6 doubles team in the nation. Tech’s No. 1 doubles pair produced a 12-5 record this spring and defeated nine nationally ranked foes. Kurey and Woodard are 7-3 in their last 10 matches.
All-ACC Awards
Georgia Tech sophomore Kendal Woodard was selected to the All-ACC First Team and sophomore Megan Kurey was selected to the All-ACC Second Team. Individual honors, as well as the All-ACC teams, were determined by a vote of the league’s 15 head coaches. Woodard and Kurey are the 19th and 20th Georgia Tech student-athletes selected to All-ACC women’s tennis teams. This is second year in a row that Woodard has been honored on the All-ACC First Team. This is Kurey’s first all-conference award of her career.
National Champions
The #6-ranked sophomore doubles duo of Megan Kurey and Kendal Woodardcapped off an impressive fall season by winning the 2013 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships doubles title. Kurey and Woodard captured the national indoor doubles title on Nov. 10, 2013 after defeating Louisville’s Julia Fellerhoff and Rebecca Shine in the championship match.
The tandem went 14-4 this fall and owned an impressive 7-3 record against nationally ranked opponents. The duo finished off the season on a nine-match winning streak, including three straight victories during national indoors on their way to the national doubles title. Kurey and Woodard also won the USTA/ITA Southeast Regional Doubles Title in the fall.
