April 28, 2011
Championship Central | Tournament Draw
BERKELEY - The California women's tennis team will head south to Ojai, Calif. for the 2011 Pac-10 Tennis Championships held at the Ojai Valley Tennis Club from Thur.-Sun., Apr. 28-May 1. A 32-player singles draw will consist of three players from each of the nine schools that sponsor women's tennis, with five additional competitors selected by a committee of coaches, based upon the participant's record. The 16-team women's doubles draw will have one doubles team from each school and seven additional teams selected by the committee, based upon the participants' record.
The Pac-10 Championships will be held in conjunction with the 111th annual Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament. The Pac-10 men will compete at Libbey Park in Ojai for all rounds. The Pac-10 women will play at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club Thur., Apr. 28 and Fri., Apr. 29. All semifinal and final matches on Sat., Apr. 30 and Sun., May 1 are at Libbey Park. Matches begin at 8 a.m. PT, with two rounds of singles on opening day. One round of singles and two rounds of doubles will be played on Friday. The Pac-10 women's singles final will be held at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, followed by the men's singles final at approximately 11 a.m. The women's doubles championship will follow at 12:30 p.m., with the men's doubles championship at 2 p.m. For the complete draw brackets, visit: http://tennislink.usta.com/Tournaments/Draws/TournamentDraws.aspx?T=99869
The Pac-10 Championships will, again, be the featured event at this year's Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, which attracts 1,600 of the best college, junior, and open players from the Western states. The annual event, started by William Thacher in 1896, has been played at the same site and interrupted only five times. If this tournament, put on entirely by volunteer efforts on public and privately owned courts, seems an unlikely place to see championship quality players, consider who has appeared here: Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, Michael Chang, Rick Leach, Tracy Austin, Billy Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors and the Bryan twins. These tennis greats are among more than 85 former players at The Ojai who have gone on to win one or more Grand Slam events as professional tennis players, all of whom are listed on Libbey Park's "Wall of Fame."
The Pac-10 women occupy 25 spots on the ITA's Top-125 singles rankings list through April 26. Of the Top-five players in the nation, four hail from the Pac-10. Junior Jana Juricova is the No. 1 player in the nation, USC senior Maria Sanchez is ranked No. 2, Stanford senior Hilary Barte is third and Washington junior Denise Dy is No. 5.
In doubles, Pac-10 women's teams hold 16 spots in the ITA Top-90 national doubles rankings, with eight schools represented. Cal's tandem of senior Mari Andersson and Juricova are the highest-ranked doubles team in the country at No. 1 and the Stanford duo of Barte and Mallory Burdette are ranked No. 2.
