MORGANTOWN, W.Va – The West Virginia University tennis team travels to Norman, Oklahoma, to take on No. 7-seed Kansas in the Big 12 Tennis Championship first round on Thursday, April 27.
The 2017 Big 12 Championship is hosted by the University of Oklahoma. Thursday's contest will take place at the Headington Family Tennis Center and is slated to begin at 2 p.m. ET.
“We are preparing and we are excited for the Big 12 tournament starting tomorrow,” said fourth-year coach
Miha Lisac. “It's another big opportunity to get better as a team and to give ourselves the opportunity to get over the hump in conference play.”
Kansas heads into the contest with a 12-9 overall record after falling to Texas (4-1) and Baylor (4-0) in the last weekend of conference play. The Jayhawks finished the season with a 4-5 record in league play.
Sophomore Anastasia Rychagova leads the Jayhawks in singles play and is ranked No. 73 in the latest Oracle/ITA singles rankings. She has obtained a 9-4 record in dual matches this spring at the No. 1 singles slot, including a 6-3 record in Big 12 play. Senior Tess Bernard-Feigenbaum heads into the match with an 11-5 record at the No. 2 position. The tandem of Bernard-Feigenbaum and Nina Khmelnitckaia pace the Jayhawks in doubles action with a 20-10 record in the 2016-17 season, and rank No. 35.
The Mountaineers (4-15, 0-9) enter the Big 12 Championship after dropping a pair of matches against Oklahoma State (4-0) on Friday, April 21, and Oklahoma on Sunday, April 23, in Morgantown.
Junior Habiba Shaker leads WVU with an 8-5 record at the No. 1 slot. Paula Goetz and Lyn Yuen Choo pace the Mountaineers with a 5-4 record in doubles play. Goetz has won a team-high nine doubles matches this spring.
Thursday's match will be broadcast live at
FloTennis.com. Fans will be able to see live action of every court during the match. It will be the first time WVU and KU have faced off in the Big 12 Championship tournament.
Live updates from the match will be available on Twitter by following
@WVUTennis. A full recap of Thursday's action will also be available at WVUSports.com.
