Elon Women’s Tennis Cracks ITA National Rankings

ELON, N.C. – On the heels of Tuesday’s NCAA Tournament draw, the Elon University women’s tennis team broke back into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) national polls today, May 1, and now sits at No. 75 in the country.

The Phoenix opened the season in the Top 75 at No. 74, but a slow start to the season against four ranked opponents — No. 54 Virginia Tech, No. 3 North Carolina, No. 4 Georgia and No. 55 Kansas State — knocked Elon out of the polls until this week.

Though struggling down the stretch through its last eight matches of the regular season, Elon has won five matches in a row to get back into the rankings. During the streak, Elon has topped Samford in the Southern Conference Tournament finals, Furman in the SoCon Tournament semifinals, and UNC Greensboro twice. Elon’s defeat of Furman marked the Paladins first conference loss of the season while the defeat of Samford in the SoCon Tournament finals marked the first conference championship of any sort for women’s tennis since moving to Division I in 2000.

With the automatic bid from winning the SoCon Tournament as the No. 4 seed, Elon earned its first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament and will take on the tournament’s No. 1 seed in the Georgia Bulldogs on Friday, May 9, at 4 p.m. Earlier this season, Elon lost to Georgia in the ITA Kickoff Weekend Tournament in Athens, Ga., 4-0.