The No. 23 ASU tennis team (12-5, 3-2) will host two more Pac-12 conference foes this week when No. 4 UCLA visits on Friday, followed by No. 1 USC on Saturday.
The Sun Devils are coming off of a week where they lost during Pac-12 play for the first time this season, as they fell to No. 3 California and No. 10 Stanford each by the score of 6-1.
Despite being nearly swept in its last two matches, the team actually moved up a spot in this week’s national rankings.
There was no movement among the singles and doubles national rankings. Junior Desirae Krawczyk remains the No. 45 singles player in the country and the only Sun Devil player currently ranked.
In the doubles, Krawczyk and fellow junior Stephanie Vlad are ranked as the No. 36 couple in the country and senior Joanna Smith and sophomore Kassidy Jump are the No. 77 pair.
The team’s opponents this week possess elite talent similar to its adversaries last week.
All six of the Bruins' singles players are currently ranked within the top 105 players in the country, including senior Robin Anderson (No. 1), senior Chanelle Van Nguyen (No. 13), junior Kyle McPhillips (No. 29), sophomore Jennifer Brady (No. 46), junior Catherine Harrison (No. 53) and senior Kaitlin Ray (No. 105).
UCLA also boasts three nationally ranked doubles teams, composed of Harrison and McPhillips (No. 1), Brady and Anderson (No. 23), as well as Anderson and Van Nguyen (No. 51).
Similarly, USC will trot out a singles lineup with all six of its players being currently ranked within the top-75 in the country.
For the Trojans, junior Giuliana Olmos (No. 11), senior Sabrina Santamaria (No. 20), senior Zoë Scandalis (No. 49), freshman Meredith Xepoleas (No. 64), freshman Gabby Smith (No. 65) and freshman Madison Westby (No. 73) form the team’s singles group.
Scandalis and Olmos (No. 15), sophomore Zoë Katz and Santamaria (No. 19), and Katz and senior Gabriella DeSimone (No. 30) are the team’s ranked doubles pairings, according to the most recent ITA poll.
The Sun Devils will be looking to recover from their tough defeats last week with a chance to potentially notch a victory over a top five team.
The team’s match against No. 4 UCLA will be played on Friday, April 3, at 1:30 p.m. in Tempe. The team will take on No. 1 USC on Saturday, April 4, at noon in Tempe.
Reach the reporter at kajone31@asu.edu or follow @kaelenjones on Twitter.
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