KU Tennis Players Enters ITA National Singles, Doubles Rankings
March 29, 2011
LAWRENCE, Kan. –
Kansas tennis junior Ekaterina Morozova and freshman Dylan Windom entered this week’s Campbell’s ITA Collegiate Tennis Rankings, marking the first time since the fall of 2007 that a Jayhawk singles player has been ranked and the first time since spring of 2009 a doubles team has entered the rankings.
Morozova and Windom enter the doubles rankings at No. 73 while Morozova is ranked No. 65 in singles and becomes just the second KU women’s tennis player to be ranked in the top 100 since Kris Sell held a No. 29 ranking in 2009.
Morozova and Windom went 2-0 on the weekend, taking down Texas 23rd-ranked duo of Amanda Craddock and Cierra Gayton-Leach in Saturday’s match at the Jayhawk Tennis Center. The No. 1 doubles team upended Texas’ top team 8-4, holding off a furious rally. The win was KU’s first victory against a top-30 team in five years. The last time KU achieved the feat was April 22, 2006 when Elizaveta Avdeeva and Ksenia Bukina defeated a 28th-ranked team.
This is the first career honor for Windom, a freshman out of Tifton, Ga., (Tift County HS), while it is the second time in Morozova’s career that she has cracked the doubles rankings. The junior out of Togliatte, Russia, ended her freshman season in 2009 ranked No. 87 with former partner Edina Horvath. The ranking is the highest for a Jayhawk doubles team since the September 2007 preseason rankings when Avdeeva and Horvath were tabbed at No. 36.
This is the first singles honor for Morozova, who went 1-1 on the weekend, ending with KU’s first win over a top-30 team since Oct 20. 2005. Morozova downed Texas A&M’s Nazari Urbina, who was then ranked No. 18, 6-4, 6-1 in the No. 1 singles match. It was just her second career win over a ranked opponent, with her first coming in 2009 over the No. 118 player from BYU.
The win was arguably the biggest of her career, as Urbina, a 2010 NCAA singles participant, is currently rated the second-best player in the Big 12.
The singles ranking is KU’s first since 2007, when Avdeeva garnered a No. 117 ranking in fall’s preseason list.
Morozova currently leads KU in both singles and doubles, with an 8-6 record singles record in dual matches, all at the No. 1 position, and has compiled a 10-4 record with Windom in No. 1 doubles.
Kansas will be in action again Friday afternoon, when the Jayhawks travel to Ames, Iowa, to take on Iowa State.
