Top-Ranked Stanford Opens NCAA Tournament At Home

May 11, 2000

STANFORD, Calif. - The top-ranked Stanford University men's tennis team begins its quest for a 17th NCAA team championship and 12th in the last 15 years when it opens postseason play this weekend at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium ... In first round matches Saturday on The Farm, the 30th-ranked Auburn Tigers (14-9, #17-32 seed) plays the 35th-ranked California Golden Bears (12-10, #33-48 seed) at 9:00 a.m. and the Pac-10 Champion Cardinal, who received the top seed in the 64-team tournament, meets the 54th-ranked Northwestern Wildcats (11-11, #49-64 seed) at noon ... The winner of the Auburn/California and Stanford/Northwestern matches will then meet on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. for the right to advance to the NCAA Championships in Athens, Georgia on May 20-23 ... Stanford looks to pick up where it left off in the 1990's, when it won six NCAA titles (1990, '92, '95, '96, '97, '98) ... Dating back to 1995, Stanford has won 18 of its last 19 NCAA dual matches, including 11 by a 4-0 score.

THE FIELD: Stanford will be meeting Northwestern in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ... The Cardinal is 2-0 all-time against the Wildcats, including a 6-1 win on The Farm on Feb. 12th of last season ... Stanford and its arch-rival California have met 78 times since the series began in 1967, with the Cardinal holding a 69-9 advantage ... Stanford went 2-0 against California, winning 5-2 on Mar. 1 in Berkeley and 6-1 on Mar. 25 on The Farm ... Stanford has also won all three meetings between the teams in the postseason - 5-1 in 1977, 5-3 in 1980 and 5-4 in 1981 ... Stanford and Auburn have never met on the tennis court.

THE RANKINGS: Stanford is enjoying its second run at No. 1 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings this season, and has been atop the poll for eight weeks in 2000 ... The Cardinal was ranked No. 1 from Mar. 1-15 after winning the National Team Indoor Championships in Louisville, and regained the No. 1 ranking on Apr. 12 following a 4-3 home win over then-No. 1 UCLA ... In the May 10th team rankings, Auburn jumped one spot to No. 30, California stayed at No. 35 and Northwestern moved up two spots to No. 54 ... In the May 3rd ITA Individual Singles Rankings, Stanford has three players among the top 11 ... Senior Geoff Abrams (Newport Beach, CA/Newport Harbor HS) moved up from #8 to #5 on the strength of his Pac-10 Individual Singles title, while junior Alex Kim (Potomac, MD/Winston Churchill HS) dropped one slot to #7 and sophomore K.J. Hippensteel (Roanoke, VA/International Academy) moved up four places to #11 ... Four other players who will be competing at Stanford this weekend are ranked among the top 100 nationally - #35 Stephen Huss of Auburn, #75 Georges Matijasevic of Auburn, #88 Erik Dmytruk of California and #89 Tiago Ruffoni of Auburn ... On the doubles side, the Stanford duo of Abrams and Kim has been ranked #1 in the nation since December 7 ... Six of the remaining top 49 doubles teams in the nation will also be playing on The Farm on Saturday and Sunday - #20 Huss and Mark Kovacs of Auburn, #22 Dmytruk and Scott Kintz of California, #34 Hippensteel and David Martin of Stanford, #42 Brad Erickson and Joost Hol of Northwestern and #44 Robert Kowalczyk and Ben Miles of California.

ABRAMS AND KIM NAMED PAC-10 CO-PLAYERS OF THE YEAR: Stanford senior Geoff Abrams and junior Alex Kim were named Pacific-10 Conference Men's Tennis Co-Players of the Year on Tuesday, May 9 ... The honor comes just a week after Abrams defeated Kim 7-5, 6-7, 7-4 to win the Pac-10 Individual Singles Championship in Ojai ... Abrams, who is currently the fifth-ranked singles player in the nation, enters the NCAA Tournament with a 22-match winning streak dating all the way back to Feb. 25 ... Eleven of those 22 wins came over opponents ranked in the top 100, and all but six wins in the streak came in straight sets ... He is 42-6 overall (20-2 in duals, 1-0 at No. 1, 19-2 at No. 2), and with two wins this weekend, can post the highest single season win total by a Cardinal since Ryan Wolters went 44-9 in 1996 ... Abrams and Kim have been the nation's top-ranked doubles team since December, and have won 32 of their 38 matches this season and 17 of 20 in dual competition ... Abrams and Kim have teamed to win doubles titles at the ITA All-American Championships in Austin, Texas and the National Collegiate Tennis Classic in Thousand Oaks ... Kim, meanwhile, is ranked #7 in the nation, and enters the NCAA Tournament 38-7 overall and 18-4 in duals ... Kim, who plays #1 singles for the Cardinal, has won singles titles at the ITA Regional and National Collegiate Tennis Classic this season ... Ironically, Kim beat Abrams in the finals of both of those events ... Kim and Abrams were also named First Team All-Pac-10, and sophomore K.J. Hippensteel was named to the Second Team ... Hippensteel, who is currently ranked 11th in the country, won the singles title at the ITA All-American Championships in October and teamed with freshman David Martin (Key Biscayne, FL/Boca Raton Prep) to win the ITA Regional doubles title ... The Cardinal sophomore, who was ranked #1 in the country in December, advanced to the Pac-10 Semifinals to complete his comeback from a bout of mononucleosis that kept him out of action for over two months.

CARDINAL CLINCHES PAC-10 TEAM TITLE: Stanford won its third straight Pac-10 title and 17th in school history with a 5-2 win at Arizona on Apr. 15 ... The Cardinal finished Pac-10 play a perfect 7-0 to win the conference title by one game over UCLA and two games over USC ... In those seven matches, Stanford outscored its opponents 35-14 ... The Cardinal won the '98 conference title with a 12-0 mark, and tied with UCLA for the crown at 6-1 last season ... Stanford also won Pac-10 titles in 1928, '29, '31, '33 (co-champion w/Cal), '35, '42 (Southern Division), '72, '74, '78 (Southern Division), '79 (Southern Division), '80 (co-Southern Division w/USC), '83 (Southern Division), '88 (Southern Division) and '95 (co-Southern Division w/USC).

ITA Rankings

ITA Team Rankings
(as of May 10, 2000)

ITA Singles Rankings
(as of May 3, 2000)

ITA Doubles Rankings
(as of May 3, 2000)