September 8, 2003

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A slate of 17 home matches including dates against Notre Dame, Virginia, Washington State and several other matches against some of the top teams in the nation highlight the 2003-04 Virginia Tech women's tennis schedule. The home schedule also includes the Virginia Tech Fall Invitational and the ITA Eastern Regional Championships. The Hokies return four players from last year's 16-13 squad that finished with a No. 69 national ranking.

The fall schedule will have Tech opening the season at the William & Mary Invitational in September followed by the Virginia Tech Fall Invitational the following weekend. The Hokies will travel in October to Winston-Salem, N.C. for the Wake Forest Invitational then conclude the Fall schedule by hosting the ITA Eastern Regional.

"I am very excited to start the season and have our players compete in the fall tournaments," said first year Virginia Tech head coach Terry Ann Zawacki-Woods. "Several of the teams we will see in this fall will be the same teams we will competing against head-to-head in the spring so it gives us a good opportunity to see where we stand at this point in time. We also are fortunate to be able to host two tournaments, which is a big plus for our team to be able to compete at home and for the Virginia Tech and tennis community to be given the opportunity to see some of the best college tennis the East Region has to offer."

Tech will face another tough spring schedule featuring 10 teams who were ranked last season. The BIG EAST Conference does not have a regular season schedule in tennis and six teams will be selected to participate in the BIG EAST Championships by a committee with emphasis on national ranking (Top 75) followed by head-to-head results versus BIG EAST opponents, and record against common opponents.

The spring schedule includes January home matches against Seton Hall and James Madison. In February, the Hokies will host Syracuse, Brown, Furman, Radford, Boston College, Washington State, Notre Dame and Virginia. March home dates include matches against Georgetown, Rutgers and Winthrop. The home schedule concludes in April with matches against William & Mary, East Tennessee State, Virginia Commonwealth and West Virginia. Tech was 14-4 last year at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center. The Hokies will face road matches at N.C. State, Penn State, Marshall, Florida Atlantic, Miami, Old Dominion and Richmond. Tech will also play a neutral match against Minnesota in Huntington, W.Va.

"Our spring season is going to be very exciting and challenging, but we want the challenge to help prepare us physically and mentally to go for the BIG EAST title in early May," said Zawacki-Woods. "It will be exciting to start off our season with a BIG EAST match-up and I am looking forward to competing against the other BIG EAST schools later in the season. In addition to conference matches, we have a number of home matches featuring some nationally ranked teams as well as a challenging away schedule."