Feb. 1, 2006

THIS WEEK... The No. 47 University of New Mexico women's tennis team will travel to the Northwest to compete against University of Portland and No. 26 University of Washington. The Lobos take on Portland Friday February 3 at 8:30 a.m. (MST) in a neutral match in Seattle, Wash. followed by a 10 a.m. (MST) match Feb. 5 at Washington.

NATIONAL RANKINGS... Despite suffering a loss against the No. 26 Arizona State Sun Devils, New Mexico (0-1) moved a spot from No. 48 to No. 47 in this week's ITA team national rankings.

The Mountain West Conference still has five teams listed in the ITA national rankings. Even though TCU fell two spots they still hold the highest MWC standing at No. 16. BYU (3-0) also fell one spot to No. 22. The two other ranked teams moved up in the rankings with SDSU one spot in front of UNM at No. 46 and UNLV moving up two places to No. 39.

Individual rankings remain the same until Feb. 7 when the new individual rankings will be released as well as new team rankings. In the first individual rankings of the season Maja Kovacek made the highest singles rankings in UNM women's tennis history and a personal best at No. 20. She passed her own record previously made last year with a No. 24 ranking. Iva Gersic was also featured in the rankings at a personal best of No. 45. As a doubles team, the combined forces of Kovacek and Gersic earned a No. 3 national ranking making it the highest ranking UNM women's tennis has ever seen. The duo also passed their ranking from last year of No. 4 in which they beat out the No. 5 ranked All-American pair of Kovacek and former Lobo Sandy Lukowski from the 2004 season.

A LOOK AT THE PORTLAND PILOTS... The Pilots have had a rough start to their season after suffering 3 losses last weekend against No. 27 Oregon, Boise State and No. 26 Washington. They are currently 0-3 in their season.

This season's roster features 2 seniors, 2 sophomores, and 4 freshman. Portland is coached by Susie Campbell-Gross who is in her 13th season with the team.

New Mexico has matched up against Portland one time previously and came out with a win.

A LOOK AT THE WASHINGTON HUSKIES... The Huskies start their season out at 0-1 after being defeated by Mountain West Conference opponent No. 22 BYU.

Their line up features 2 seniors, 1 junior, 2 sophomores and 1 freshman. It is Jill Hultquist's first year as head coach at the collegiate level. She served as assistant coach for the Huskies from 1997-2002.

This will be New Mexico's 7th time matching up against Washington, with their current record being 2-4

LAST WEEK: NO. 26 ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY The University of New Mexico women's is now 0-1 after falling 5-2 against the now No. 14, Arizona State University last weekend in Tempe, Ariz. The Sun Devils were ranked No. 26 before taking a huge win right before their match against New Mexico to No. 3 Texas.

New Mexico earned the doubles point with wins at both the No. 1 and 2 spots. The 3rd ranked duo of Iva Gersic and Maja Kovacek defeated the No. 26 Kady Pooler and Roxanne Clarke 8-5 at the No. 1 spot. At the No. 2 spot sophomores Ola Abou-Zekry and Lucy Scott defeated the 34th ranked Sabrina Capannolo and Rebecca Rankin 8-6.

In singles action Abou-Zekry was able to pick up a singles point at the No. 4 spot after defeating Wendy Pilecka 7-6 (4-2), 6-2. Arizona upset New Mexico's No. 1 and 2 spots as No. 20 Kovacek was defeated by No. 100 Capannolo 6-4, 6-4 and No. 45 Gersic suffered a loss by Arizona's Pooler 6-3, 6-2.

ON THE ROSTER... The Lobos feature nine players on the roster this season with one seniors (Maja Kovacek), four juniors (Elisa Bonner, Allison Davis, Iva Gersic and Nora Quintal), three sophomores (Ola Abou-Zekry, Jennifer Ryba and Lucy Scott) and one freshman (Mackenzie White). The UNM tennis team is coached by head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz who is entering her 21st year with the Lobos and assistant coach Roy Cañada who is entering his tenth year.

The Lobos lost two seniors from the 2004-05 squad (Michelle Heidbrink and Tiffany Robertson).

2005 FALL REVIEW... The 2005 fall season proved to be a good learning experience for the team. After dealing with illness and injury the Lobos look forward to proving themselves in the spring. The team went to three invites (UNM, Cal Berkeley and SDSU), competed at the ITA Central Championships, and had Maja Kovacek and Iva Gersic compete in two of ITA's most prestigious national events (Riviera All-American Championships and the National Individual Indoor Championships.)

DANGEROUS DUO... The doubles team of Maja Kovacek and Iva Gersic had a very eventful fall season as they competed in two of the ITA's national events. In October, the pair was selected for the second year in a row to compete in the doubles main draw at the Riviera All-American Championships. Both players were also selected as singles players, Kovacek in the singles main draw and Gersic in the singles qualifying tournament. While at the tournament, the No. 3 New Mexico team defeated the No. 19 Indiana duo in the first round of doubles competition. Kovacek and Gersic then went on to defeat the Cal Berkeley in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Lobo tandem fell to No. 2 Notre Dame, but earned a bid to the National Individual Indoor Championships in November.

At the indoor championships, Kovacek and Gersic defeated the team from South Florida in the first round of the doubles main draw. The duo went on to be recognized among the top two doubles teams in the nation after advancing to the semifinals round with a win against TCU. They lost by default to Stanford in the semifinal round.

DID YOU KNOW...

• Five out of nine players on the UNM women's tennis team are international student-athletes.

• Junior Iva Gersic currently holds the record for highest career winning percentage (123-25, .831)

•Senior Maja Kovacek holds the record for most combined single season wins (singles and doubles) at 64 and most career wins in doubles.

• The outdoor tennis courts at the Lobo Tennis Club were fully replaced in July 2004.

• The Lobos have maintained above a 3.0 G.P.A. for 28 straight semesters and above a 3.2 G.P.A. for 19 consecutive semesters.

• In the spring of 2004, the Lobos captured their fifth undefeated home record in the last eight years and their 18th straight home win.

• In 2004, New Mexico won its first Mountain West Conference regular season title with a perfect 7-0 record in conference play.

•New Mexico has had a winning record for the past 9 years THE SCHEDULE... Once again New Mexico's schedule is packed with ranked opponents, non-conference and conference. With the minimal home matches this year the Lobos have a full and difficult schedule ahead of them.

The Lobos host only five home matches at the Lobo Tennis Club (two non-conference and three conference), while the rest are to be played on the road.

Conference games will be played toward the end of New Mexico's schedule, starting at the end of March.

(Head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz on this season's schedule): This year is probably one of our best schedules ever, if not the best. I really made a point to try to schedule as many top-50 teams as I could possibly get. We're going to be traveling a little bit more than we usually do because of that. It's more difficult to get those teams to come here so we're playing 80 percent on the road and 20 percent here.

(Head coach on the addition of TCU to the MWC) One of our goals is always to win conference and it just got a whole lot harder with the addition of TCU. They finished 19th last year and they're looking to be a top-10 team this year with three players ranked in the top-30. Their No. 1 player on the team won the All-American. So TCU has made it that much harder to win conference, but the competition is great. Women's tennis in the Mountain West Conference is very strong this year, it was not a surprise to see five teams ranked in the top-50.

Lobos Women's Tennis

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