Alabama Women’s Tennis Announces 2016-17 Schedule
8/9/2016 3:26:00 PM | Women's Tennis
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama – The Alabama women's tennis team announced its 2016-17 schedule on Tuesday, which includes seven fall tournaments and 20 regular season matches in the spring. The Crimson Tide will hold two tournaments, the USTA/ITA Southern Regional Championships (Oct. 14-17) and the Roberta Alison Fall Classic (Oct. 28-30), in the middle of its fall schedule, and will compete at home 11 times in the spring.
To begin the fall season, the Crimson Tide will travel to Houston, Texas, to compete in the Rice Invitational from Sept. 23-25. Alabama will remain on the road for its next two tournaments, traveling to Charleston, S.C., to participate in the ITF $10K Charleston from Sept. 26-Oct. 2, and Los Angeles, Calif., from Oct. 1-9 to compete in the annual ITA Riviera All-American Championships. The Crimson Tide returns to Tuscaloosa for its next two fall tournaments, hosting the USTA/ITA Southern Regional Championships and the Roberta Alison Fall Classic on Oct. 14-17 and Oct. 28-30, respectively. Alabama will participate in one more fall tournament, the Seminole All-Conference Showdown, in Tallahassee, Fla., on Nov. 4-6, and during that same time period, the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships will be held in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
"We are looking forward to a competitive fall schedule to help prepare us for the spring," Alabama women's tennis head coach Jenny Mainz said. "We will get plenty of quality matches and see some non-conference opponents this fall. We are excited about hosting two tournaments and playing in front of our Alabama fans. It's great to have the ITA Southern Regionals back in Tuscaloosa as our team will enjoy playing at home with our Bama fans."
In the spring portion of the schedule, the Crimson Tide will face 17 opponents that finished last season nationally ranked, and 10 of those teams ended the season ranked in the top 25. Alabama will play its first four matches of the 2017 season at home, before traveling to Columbus, Ohio, to challenge Harvard as part of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend on Saturday, Jan. 28. The Tide will then face either Ohio State or Florida State in the second match of the event. This year's ITA National Team Indoor Championships will be held in New Haven Conn., on Feb. 10-13. Alabama will conclude its non-conference side of the schedule by participating in the annual Blue Gray National Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 24-25, before diving into conference play in the first week of March.
All but one of Alabama's scheduled conference opponents this season finished nationally ranked in 2016, and nine of those teams ended the season ranked in the top 25. Alabama will travel to the state of Mississippi for its first two conference matches, taking on Ole Miss and Mississippi State on Friday, March 3, and Sunday, March 5, respectively. The Crimson Tide returns to Tuscaloosa the following weekend to compete against Georgia on Friday, March 10, before facing Tennessee on Sunday, March 12. Alabama will then go on a tough stretch where they will face seven conference foes who all finished last year's season ranked in the top 25. The final two scheduled conference matches of the regular season will be held in Tuscaloosa, as the Crimson Tide is set to take on Arkansas on Friday, Aril 14, and Missouri on Sunday, April 16.
"It will be nice to start and finish our spring season at home," said Mainz. "We have a lot of fantastic opportunities built into our schedule. The strength of the SEC continues to improve every year. We are eager to see how we stack up against our conference rivals."
The 2017 SEC Championship will be at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., April 19-23. NCAA first and second round action takes place May 12-14, and the 2017 NCAA Championships will be played on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga., May 18-29.
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