This weekend is a monumental one for tennis in the Pacific Northwest, as the UW hosts the ITA Indoor National Championships for the first time since 2013.
The best of the best will be playing at the Nordstrom Tennis Center and the Seattle Tennis Club starting Friday morning. The field includes the top 12 teams in the country, including three of the final four teams in last year’s NCAA championship, with No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 North Carolina, and No. 4 Georgia. The field of 16 also includes three other teams ranked in the top-25. The Huskies are the lone unranked team in the tournament.
The high profile opponents presents a good chance for the Huskies to not only see the level they are at, but to also compete against teams they may not usually see in the regular season.
Despite being the 16 seed, the Huskies fully believe that they have the ability to fight with these teams. The fact that they are riding a five-match winning streak doesn’t hurt.
“I am very excited and the whole team is fired up; we can’t wait for the chance to play all of these great teams,” junior Piers Foley said. “We have the heart and the talent to really succeed here. We have the drive to do well and make some upsets in this competition.”
Having this type of tournament is an extremely rare opportunity. The selection process is done by different schools submitting bids and a committee deciding what school would be the best. There have only been eight schools to host the tournament since its inception in 1973: Wisconsin, Princeton, UCLA, Kentucky, Illinois, Texas A&M, Virginia, and Washington.
This is also just the eighth time Washington has hosted the tournament. The Huskies did not do as well as they hoped in 2013, winning just one match, but the chance to host was incredible.
“It’s a thrill, it’s exciting, the tournament is just a blast,” head coach Matt Anger said. “It’s an honor to host such a prestigious event. There’s also some responsibilities, things that we have to make sure are working well for everybody and that the tournament runs well. We have great people helping out so I’m pretty confident that it’ll all go well.”
Such a high-level event is expected to lead to a great atmosphere, but most of it will come from the fans as opposed to players on other teams because of the demands of such a grueling tournament.
“You have different players and teams that are here, but at the same time, it’s a difficult event in that you’re playing every day; every school plays the first three days so you’re not hanging around the courts too much because you have to take care of your own business,” Anger said. “You got to get ready to play, you’ve got to recover, and make sure you’re doing everything to play again next day. You want to be as well-rested as possible.”
The tournament extends far beyond just the Huskies and their fans. It could potentially be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all tennis fans in the area to see a level of tennis that they may never see again.
“If I step back and look at the big picture, I think It’s been great for the community. They can come out at any time and see great tennis,” Anger said. “The competition is fun to watch, I obviously want people to come watch the Huskies, but I think it’s great for the sport when they come and watch any of the teams playing.”
The memorable weekend will begin with eight matches on Friday starting at 9 a.m. The Huskies kick things off Friday night at 6.30 p.m. against No. 1 Wake Forest. The championship match will be played at noon on Feb. 19.
Reach reporter Kyle Gehler at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @KyleGehler
