Fact Sheet 3

Arkansas tennis sweeps Big 12: The University of Arkansas women’s tennis team had a productive weekend against two regional Big 12 Conference foes. The Lady’Backs first defeated Oklahoma Sooners at home on Friday, February 9, 5-2 before going on the road to defeat the Kansas Jayhawks by the same score on Sunday, Feb. 11. Adding the weekends’ two wins to an earlier defeat of the Missouri Tigers puts the Lady’Backs 3-0 in the 2007 spring schedule against all Big 12 opponents. The 3-0 record is an improvement from last year in which Arkansas suffered three Big 12 losses in five matches to Nebraska, Baylor and Texas.

Up Next for Arkansas: The Lady’Backs are taking this weekend off as far as match play goes. However, the competition picks right back up the following weekend as Arkansas hosts their second highest ranked team of the season in Brigham Young University on Friday, Feb. 23. BYU is currently ranked No. 36 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s poll. The ranking may be high, but Arkansas has already upset one team ranked in the top 40. In their first match of the season, the Lady’Backs upset the North Carolina State Wolfpack, 5-2, in the Dills Indoor Tennis Center.

No Place Like Home: Under current head coach Michael Hegarty, the Dills Indoor Tennis Center has become a very difficult place to play. Since Hegarty assumed the Arkansas head coaching job, the Lady’Backs are 32-21 counting all the up until last weekend’s home match against Oklahoma.

More on Hegarty, 35 wins at Arkansas: The Lady’Backs coach passed another milestone with the win over Kansas on Feb. 11; it was his 35th win as head coach of the Lady Razorbacks. In his career as head coach in Fayetteville, Hegarty is 35-36 with a chance to even up his record against36th ranked Brigham Young University on Feb. 23.

Still Undefeated: Sophomore Ela Kaluder continues to lead the charge for the Lady’Backs on the singles court as she picked up another two wins over the weekend. Currently, Kaluder is a perfect 7-0 in singles this spring. Not only is she undefeated this spring, she is undefeated whilst playing on the No. 1 court. Moreover, this year’s streak is one shy of tying her longest collegiate streak of eight which she set during the fall of 2005.

Redemption: Last Friday, Feb. 9, Kaluder got to experience a feeling very few tennis athletes get to experience: redemption. During the 2005-06 season, Kaluder found herself in Norman, Oklahoma on singles court three against OU player Monica Purice. In that match, Kaluder was handed one of her worst defeats in her Lady’Back career in a 6-1, 6-2 loss. Fast forward to last Friday in Arkansas home match against the Sooners. Kaluder found herself on singles court one, across from none other than OU’s Purice. This time, however, it was Kaluder who did the beating as she cruised to a near exact win as her previous loss, 6-2, 6-1.

Hoffmeister lifts Lady’Backs: Freshman Melissa Hoffmeister has begun to takeoff in her young career as a Lady Razorback. Over the last two matches, the Joplin, Mo., native picked up two big wins on court six for the Lady’Backs over Oklahoma’s Evgenia Ostryakova, 6-1, 6-0, and Kansas’ Stephanie Smith, 8-3.. Originally an invited walk-on, Hoffmeister worked her way into the singles and doubles lineup. This spring, she is 4-2 in singles splitting time on courts five and six.

Download: Notes 2-12.pdf