.png&width=24&type=webp)
Princeton University Athletics
Women's Tennis to Learn NCAA Tournament Destination Tuesday
April 28, 2009 | Women's Tennis
PRINCETON ? For the first time in nine years, the Princeton women's tennis team will head to the NCAA tournament. Tuesday night, they'll find out their destination.
The NCAA selection announcement will air at approximately 5:20 p.m. on ESPNEWS, which is available on satellite and many cable systems in addition to being carried on satellite radio.
Additionally, the draws for the individual singles and doubles tournaments will be posted Wednesday, should Princeton have selections in those fields.
In the weekly ITA rankings, also released Tuesday, Princeton moved up four spots to No. 42. Princeton is the highest-ranked team in the Ivy League, in the Northeast and anywhere between Princeton and Ohio and Virginia.
The 2009 Ivy League title is the eighth league championship in Princeton's program history, following 1980, 1982, 1983, 1990, 1993, 1994 and 2000. The NCAA appearance will only be Princeton's third, however, following 1983 and 2000.
When Princeton won its first title in 1980, the NCAA tournament did not exist. From 1982-87, the NCAA tournament was a 16-team invitational, and Princeton was fortunate enough to be included in 1983.
But 1988 was the last season until 1996 that the Ivy League made an appearance in the NCAA tennis field. The tournament grew to 20 teams from 1988-95 and the Ivy didn't get an automatic bid until 1996, when it expanded to 48. In 1999, the field expanded to the current 64 teams.
The Ivy League has an all-time record of 13-24 in the NCAA tournament, and six Ivies have made appearances. Brown, Cornell and Yale have made one a piece, while Penn has been six times and Harvard 13 times. Penn is the last team to have won an NCAA match, advancing to the second round in 2006.
Princeton's first visit to the NCAA tournament in 1983 sent the Tigers to Albuquerque, N.M., where Princeton lost 9-0 to Stanford (doubles weren't counted as one point until 2001). Seventeen years later, when the tournament had reached its current format, Princeton fell 5-1 to Tennessee in a William & Mary-hosted first-round match.