Oct. 13, 1997
No. 7 California to Play in All-American Championships
THIS WEEK: Oct. 18-26 at All-American Championships,
Los Angeles, Calif., All Day
NEXT ACTION: Nov. 7-10 at ITA Rolex Regional Indoors
Qualifier, Dallas, TX, All Day
THE ALL-AMERICAN: Eleven members of the Cal's
seventh-ranked women's tennis team will be in action this week
at the Riviera All-American Championships. The Pre-Qualifying
and Qualifying rounds will take place Oct. 18-22 with the main
draw running Oct. 23-26. As a result of being named 1996-97
All-Americans, Amanda Agustus (Pacific Palisades), Claire
Curran (Dublin, Ireland), Amy Jensen (Sydney, Australia) and
Esther Knox (Sydney, Australia) have received automatic berths
in the main draw with the remaining players scheduled to begin
play in either the Pre-Qualifying or Qualifying rounds. Last
year both Agustus and Knox advanced to the quarterfinals.
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Esther Knox
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KNOX SHINES AT ASU TOURNAMENT: Three Golden Bears got a
jump on the 1997-98 tennis season competing in the Arizona
State University/Miss Karen's Tennis Classic last weekend in
Tempe, Ariz. Knox, who was the tournament's second seeded
player, took home first place honors defeating No. 1 seed Reka
Cseresnyes of ASU, 7-6 (5), 7-5 in the finals. Curren also had
a strong tournament and made it all the way to the semifinals
after knocking off Allison Nash of ASU, 6-3, 6-4, in the
quarters. But her bid to make it an all-Cal final fell short as
she was defeated by Cseresnyes in the semifinals, 6-4, 6-1.
Cal's third player in the singles draw, Stephanie Tibbits, did
get by her first round opponent, Joanna Buczkowska of Arizona
6-2, 6-0, but was also knocked off by Cseresnyes, the Sun
Devils' top player, in the round of 16. Cal also captured the
doubles championship as the tandem of Knox and Curren defeated
Pac-10 rival Karolina Bakalarova and Veronika Safarova of USC,
8-4, to take the doubles championship.
CAL EARNS NO. 7 PRESEASON RANKING: After finishing the
1996-97 campaign as the 10th-ranked team in the country, Cal
was voted the nation's No. 7 squad in this year's Preseason
Intercollegiate Tennis Associations rankings. Not only do the
Bears return intact their six top players from last season, but
to the mix they have added Wake Forest sophomore transfer
Jensen and Hungarian freshman Anita Kurimay. Individually, Cal
has six players ranked among the nation's top 100 in singles as
well as three doubles tandems ranked in the top 50 of the ITA's
Rolex Preseason Rankings.They are:
singles doubles
18 Amanda Augustus (Jr.) 5 Amanda Augustus (Jr.)/Claire Curran (So.)
23 Amy Jensen (So.) 30 Amy Jensen (So.)/Anita Kurimay (Fr.)
27 Francesca La'O (Jr.) 37 Esther Knox (So.)/Francesca La'O (Jr.)
33 Esther Knox (So.)
63 Anita Kurimay (Fr.)
89 Lisa Swierniak (So.)
The ITA's Fall Rankings ranking will be released in Dec. 9.
THE COACHES: One of the Top 10 winningest coaches in
women's collegiate tennis, Jan Brogan is in her 20th year as
the Bears head coach with a career record of 358-147 (.709).
She is assisted by first-year coach Kathy Toon.
