No. 1 Stanford Cardinal (3-0, 0-0 Pac-12)
vs.
No. 18 LSU Tigers (6-0, 0-0 SEC)
ITA National Team Indoor Championships
Friday, Feb. 8 • 2 p.m.
Nordstrom Tennis Center • Seattle, Wash.
Live Scoring | Live Video | Facebook |Twitter| Instagram
STANFORD, Calif. - No. 1 Stanford travels to Seattle this weekend with an opportunity to compete for a rare in-season title.
After sweeping through ITA Kick-Off Weekend two weeks ago, Stanford (3-0) has punched its ticket to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships, which get underway Friday.
The Cardinal last participated in the event in 2011, when it posted victories over Arkansas, Michigan and North Carolina before taking down Florida in the final. Prior to that, Stanford had not captured an indoor tournament title since 2006.
Sixteen of the nation's top teams will compete this weekend in a single-elimination format, with each school guaranteed to play at least three matches. The final is set for Monday, Feb. 11.
Top-seeded Stanford will square off against No. 18 LSU (6-0) in the opening round on Friday at 3:30 p.m. Also looming on Stanford's side of the bracket are No. 2 Vanderbilt and No. 6 Texas, two opponents that are scheduled to visit Taube Family Tennis Stadium over the next three weeks.
Simply participating in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships should only cement the Cardinal's already lofty ranking. It would also likely translate into a more manageable postseason path for Stanford, which has inexplicably been seeded higher than No. 5 only once (at No. 1 in 2011) over the last 10 years. Then again, it hasn't really mattered much, as the Cardinal has produced four NCAA titles during that stretch: 2010, 2013, 2016, 2018.
The Cardinal, which returns its entire singles and doubles lineups from last year's national championship team, is arguably the deepest team in the country and represented with eight nationally-ranked singles players and four doubles teams.
Emily Arbuthnott (16-3 overall, 3-0 duals) is the highest-ranked player at No. 14 and owns the team lead in victories. Michaela Gordon (9-5 overall, 1-0 duals) vaulted 80 spots to No. 23 thanks to an impressive fall and continues to play at the top spot of the lineup. The Cardinal is so stacked that freshmen Niluka Madurawe (14-2 overall) and Sara Choy (11-3 overall) – who have yet to play in a dual match – are also appearing in the rankings for the first time, giving Stanford eight players ranked among the top-80.
Picking up where they left off last season, Caroline Lampl and Kimberly Yee (8-4 overall, 2-0 duals) check in at No. 11 as Stanford's top doubles team. Arbuthnott and Gordon (6-3, overall, 1-0 duals) are right behind at No. 13.