ROCK HILL, SC—Winthrop's women's tennis team will be making its 12
th NCAA Championship tournament appearance in the past 14 years next week when it faces No. 3 seeded Duke on Friday, May 11 at the Ambler Tennis Stadium during the first round of the 2012 tournament. The time of the match will be announced later.
Winthrop received the No. 4 seed while the other two schools in the first and second round in Durham will be South Carolina (seeded No. 2) against TCU (No. 3). Duke comes into the NCAA tournament with a 24-2 record after capturing the Atlantic Coast Conference title. Winthrop is 15-10 after sweeping through the Big South tournament two weeks ago.
With two-time Big South Conference Player of the Year
Yasmine Alkema, a junior, along with four-year All-Big South senior performer
Sandra Herrera leading an experienced and tournament-tested squad, Winthrop will be looking for its first-ever win in the NCAA tournament. Two other Eagles who have NCAA tournament experience are junior
Giovanna Portiolli and sophomore
Andressa Garcia. The two other top six players are freshmen Ekin Gunaysu and Monica Aguado.
Winthrop has produced a dynasty in women's tennis and earned the conference's automatic bid this year by knocking off Coastal Carolina, 4-0, in the Big South Championship match. The Lady Eagles went 8-0 in the Big South. Winthrop has now captured 16 regular season Big South women's tennis titles and 15 tournament championships in the past 19 years under the direction of head coach
Cid Carvalho.
“We are honored to be back in the NCAA tournament and we look forward to playing Duke. It will be a tough match, but our girls have been playing a lot of teams highly ranked this year, so I believe we are ready for it,” said Winthrop head coach
Cid Carvalho.
“Going to Duke will be a great experience,” he said. “Duke does a really good job of hosting and putting together the first and second rounds.”
For Winthrop to have a chance against the Blue Devils, Carvalho said his team is going to work on things they can control. “We are going to prepare very hard this week and I feel like our girls are confident after winning the Big South tournament. In the fall, Yasmine (Alkema) defeated one of their players. Of course that was in individual matches that we played in the fall and team matches are entirely different.”
