Publication Date: Friday, January 16, 2004
Stanford men's tennis opens season ranked fifth in nation; women are No. 9
Stanford men's tennis opens season ranked fifth in nation; women are No. 9
(January 16, 2004) by Rick Eymer
The Stanford men's tennis team hopes to get off to a good start when it opens the spring season today through Monday in the Sherwood Cup in Los Angeles before traveling to Tulsa for a dual match on Saturday, Jan. 24.
The Cardinal open the year ranked fifth in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, which released its polls on Tuesday.
Defending NCAA team champion Illinois opens the season ranked No. 1. Stanford reached the semifinals last year before losing to Illinois. The Cardinal finished 25-4 on the season.
Sophomore KC Corkery and junior Sam Warburg are ranked among the top 71 singles player in the nation. Corkery, ranked No. 43, is coming off an All-American season as a freshman. He recorded a 31-5 singles mark, and was 21-1 in doubles play, usually with Menlo School grad James Pade.
Corkery was named Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and ITA West Region Rookie of the Year.
Warburg is ranked No. 71 in the preseason. He has a career dual singles winning percentage of .880 (44-6). Warburg compiled a 32-4 overall singles record and a 24-2 dual match record in 2003 en route to being named All-Pac-10 honorable mention.
Pade, ranked No. 82, had a solid freshman year, with a 23-6 singles mark and a 20-4 dual match record.
In doubles, Pade and Corkery are ranked tenth. They were 33-11 last year, winning 14 of their final 15 matches.
Women's tennis
Stanford enters the season ranked ninth in preseason polls. The Cardinal received nine of the 33 first-place votes with top-ranked Florida getting the remainder. The Gators accumulated 1,721 points to just edge Stanford (1,706).
Stanford, which sends players to both the National Collegiate Tennis Cup in Las Vegas and the Pac-10 Indoors in Seattle today through Sunday, is joined in the top 11 by No. 3 Cal, No. 6 USC, No. 7 Washington and No. 11 UCLA.
Erin Burdette is the highest ranked Stanford player at No. 7 entering the year. Defending NCAA singles champion Amber Liu, who was at No. 2 in the preseason, is currently unranked. She didn't participate in enough fall tournaments to qualify.
Six other Cardinal players are ranked among the top 84: Lauren Barnikow (No. 20), Alice Barnes (21), Emilia Anderson (61), Anne Yelsey (72), Story Tweedie-Yates (73), and Theresa Logar (84).
Field hockey
Stanford hosts a series of international matches featuring national women's teams from Canada, Ireland and the United States through Saturday, Jan. 24.
Ireland and the United States finish their five-game series on Saturday at 2 p.m. and then takes on Canada for four consecutive days beginning Wednesday, with all games at 2 p.m. Admission is free
Stanford assistant Justine Sowry is a goalkeeper coach for the United States team.
"I'm honored that USA Field Hockey considered me to be a valuable asset to its program," said Sowry.
The international games at Stanford serve as preparation for the 2004 Olympic Games to be held this August in Athens, Greece. The United States team will attempt to qualify for the Games in New Zealand in March.
Softball
Stanford, which opens the season on Friday, Feb. 6 against Alabama at 3 p.m. on the first day of the Stanford Invitational, was ranked 12th in the nation in a preseason poll released by ESPN.com/USA Softball on Thursday.
Defending national champion UCLA is No. 1, followed by Pac-10 teams California at No. 2 and Arizona at No. 3. Washington is ranked No. 5.
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