Owls Head West for Pair of Matches

(UPDATE) Live stats for the Wichita State match will be available..

In Brief: The Rice women's tennis team (3-3) will travel to Tempe, Arizona this weekend for matches with Wichita State on Saturday at noon and Arizona State on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Live Scoring and Video: Wichita State: Live Stats / Arizona State: Live Stats / Video

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Wichita State: The Shockers (1-6) have dropped six in a row heading into a Friday afternoon match with Arizona State. Two of those losses came to ranked teams (#11 Oklahoma State and #19 Kansas) and their last loss came at home to Old Dominion (Rice's opponent in the 2019 C-USA Championship), which received votes in last week's USTA/Tennis Channel Top 25. This will be the third meeting between Rice and Wichita State, with the schools splitting the previous two meetings by winning on their home court. The Shockers took a 4-3 decision in Wichita in 2010 while the Owls prevailed 5-2 at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium the following year.

Ranked Players: Doubles: Marta Bellucco and Sarvinoz Saidhujaeva (54)

Arizona State: The Sun Devils (6-3 prior to facing Wichita State on Friday) are ranked 18^th (Oracle/ITA) and 21^st (USTA/Tennis Channel) after advancing to the National Indoor Championship last weekend. They advanced to nations by upsetting #9 Vanderbilt 4-3 in Nashville during the ITA Kickoff Weekend. Their three losses this season came at nationals, falling to eventual champion and second-ranked North Carolina, #9 Princeton and #14 Virginia. The Sun Devils are led by legendary coach Sheila McInerney, who is in her 37^th year. ASU has qualified for the last 32 NCAA championships, reached 18 Sweet 16's and made eight appearance in the NCAA quarterfinals. The Sun Devils finished last season ranked 37^th and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. This will be the first meeting between Rice and Arizona State in women's tennis.

Ranked Players: Singles: Ilze Hattingh (29); Doubles: Tereza Kolarova and Hattingh (55).

Elizabeth Schmidt: "We are looking forward to our matches out in Arizona this weekend. It has been a long time since we have played Wichita State and our first match against Arizona State. Both programs have consistently been really solid over the years so we know we will have two good challenges ahead of us. ASU is coming off qualifying for national indoor final 16. Sheila (McInerney) is one of the best in our business. When I played at UCLA, I saw her a lot when we played against ASU and I had the utmost respect for her then. That respect has even grown more being a coaching colleague of hers now. She is just a great role model for all women in coaching."

Owls Notables:

Priya Niezgoda and Anastasia Smirnova are currently ranked 40^th in double while Smirnova is ranked 121^st in singles. Niezgoda and Smirnova are 4-1 in doubles dual action this year.
Junior Anna Bowtell and freshman Maria Budin have opened the dual season 4-1 in singles to lead the team, while Niezgoda is 4-2.
Rice is 4-2 so far this year in the doubles point (3-1 when winning the point).
The Owls are 6-2 so far in singles tiebreakers and 2-2 in supersets
Clinch points: Anna Bowtell, Priya Niezgoda and Victoria Smirnova 1.

Next Up: Rice returns home to open a stretch of six consecutive home matches over the next four weeks by hosting Texas State on Saturday, February 22 at noon. The following day they will combine with the Rice men's team in the first of two simultaneous dual matches this season as each squad faces LSU. The two teams will also host a combined dual match on March 1 when the women host Baylor and the men host SMU.

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Anna Bowtell

Maria Budin

Priya Niezgoda

Anastasia Smirnova

Victoria Smirnova

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