No. 31 Kansas set to face WVU in Big 12 Championship quarterfinals

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas women’s tennis, which finished the regular-season portion of its schedule tied with Oklahoma for sixth place in the league standings, will travel to Norman, Oklahoma for the Big 12 Championship at the Headington Family Tennis Center.
 
The Jayhawks (12-9, 4-5 Big 12) will play as the No. 7 seed in the tournament and will face No. 10 West Virginia (4-15, 0-9 Big 12) at 1 p.m., Thursday, to kick off the championship weekend. The winner will play No. 2 Oklahoma State Friday at 4 p.m.
 
“We respect West Virginia and we expect to have a great competitive match with them,” said head coach Todd Chapman. “We’ll be prepared to be challenged and know that we’ll have to compete really well to have a chance to be successful Thursday.”
 
Earlier in the season, the Mountaineers visited Lawrence where KU blanked WVU, 4-0, after winning the doubles point and earning singles victories at the No. 1, 2 and 6 spots. With the win, Kansas has won all five meetings between the two schools.
 
“In my eight years in the Big 12, this is the strongest the league has ever been,” said Chapman. “It’s great for our conference and the teams to be able to play good quality opponents. Going into the championship, it’s going to be a situation where the team that competes the best, plays confidently and approaches it the right way will probably be the team that wins it. I think there’s quite a few teams that have the opportunity to win the Big 12 Championship and it’s going to come down to who’s hot over a three- or four-day period.”
 
Playing at the same time as KU and WVU Thursday will be No. 8 Kansas State and No. 9 Iowa State. The winner will face top-seeded Texas Tech Friday at 1 p.m. Friday will also see matches between No. 4 Texas and No. 5 TCU at 1 p.m., followed by No. 3 Baylor and the host, No. 6 Oklahoma at 4 p.m. The quarterfinals and two semifinal matches, taking place at 2 p.m., Saturday, will be shown on FloTennis. The final two teams left will square off at 4 p.m., Sunday, and the title match will be aired on FSN.
 
KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.