University Southern California Trojans
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USC Women’s Tennis Opens Season With Trip Abroad To Australia
January 18, 2019 | Women's Tennis, Features
THIS WEEK
The USC women's tennis team travels to Melbourne, Australia where they will take on a team from the Tennis Australia National Academy in an exhibition match, and then officially open the dual match season against South Carolina at the Australian Open.
ORACLE/ITA RANKINGS UPDATES
The ITA released its first updated singles and doubles rankings on Nov. 14, and five Trojans were awarded national rankings.
Three freshmen have earned singles rankings in the Top 100: No. 20 Salma Ewing, No. 87 Ana Neffa and No. 99 Danielle Willson. USC is one of 12 schools to have three singles players in the Top 100, and one of three Pac-12 schools, joined by Stanford and Cal.
In doubles, the Trojan tandem of Angela Kulikov/Rianna Valdes locked down the No. 42 ranking.
The next singles/doubles rankings will be released on Feb. 6, 2019.
TROJANS DOWN UNDER
Kicking off the 2019 season is a trip overseas to Australia to compete in exhibition and regular-season matches during the 2019 Australian Open. These scheduled matches will be the inaugural contests to take place on location during one of the four professional Grand Slam events.
Both the USC men's and women's teams made the international trip to participate in the collegiate matches.
Before the competition, both programs were able to explore the cities of Cairns and Melbourne and visiting interesting places like the Great Barrier Reef and a crocodile and wildlife park. At the wildlife park, the teams were able to watch crocodiles being fed, play with kangaroos and hold koala bears. In addition, they were able to watch some of the greatest tennis in the world at the Australian Open.
Junior co-captain Angela Kulikov blogged about her experience abroad for the USC Athletics website.
SCOUTING SOUTH CAROLINA
The No. 13 ranked South Carolina Gamecocks will face the Women of Troy in the first dual match of the season. South Carolina has three nationally ranked players: No. 12 Ingrid Gamarra Martins, No. 25 Paige Cline and No. 69 Mia Horvit. In addition, the Gamecocks have three doubles pairs nationally ranked: No. 11 Horvit/Martins, No. 23 Davies/Rohrabacher and No. 59T Martins/Chinellato.
LIVE STATS/VIDEO
USC's match against South Carolina will be broadcast on ESPN3, and live streamed online at WatchESPN.
FALL SEASON
The 2018 fall tournament season proved to be a strong preview of what the team has to offer. Freshman Salma Ewing defeated four nationally ranked opponents and won the 2018 ITA Southwest Regionals Championship title. In addition, freshman Danielle Willson won the 2018 Battle of the Bay singles championship title, and the duo of Constance Branstine/Ana Neffa took home the doubles championship. USC's top doubles pair of junior Angela Kulikov and senior Rianna Valdes defeated five nationally ranked teams and reached the quarterfinals of the 2018 ITA All-American Championships. In addition, Ewing (singles) and Kulikov/Valdes (doubles) were invited to compete at the 2018 ITA National Fall Championships.
