Pitt Tennis Releases 2015 Schedule
12/1/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Complete 2015 Pitt Tennis Schedule
PITTSBURGH - University of Pittsburgh head women's tennis coach Alex Santos has announced the Panthers' 2015 spring schedule which begins in mid-January.
"We are extremely excited to announce our spring schedule," Santos said. "We feel that in comparison to last season's schedule we were able to introduce a couple of changes that will better prepare us for the high demands of the ACC. We will now be hosting the Nishan Vartabedian Invite in January, and playing a couple more matches against high quality competitors before conference play begins. To have the chance to play the best teams in the country on a weekly basis is a tremendous opportunity.
"Ultimately, to be the best team we can possibly be, we need to face the highest possible challenges, and that's exactly what we'll have in front of us. Our goal is to try to be competitive in every single match and the key to our success will be our ability to do things well on a consistent basis."
Of Pitt's 21 matches this season, 10 will come against teams that participated in the 2014 NCAA Tournament. Eight of those teams are from the ACC, including North Carolina, who lost in the national championship match to UCLA, 4-3.
The Panthers open the season the weekend of January 16-18, when they host the Nishan Vartabedian Invitational which includes contests with West Virginia, Youngstown State and ASA College.
Pitt will then travel to Waco, Texas on January 30-31, to face stiff non-conference matchups against Baylor and Tulsa. Both teams made the NCAA Tournament last season and finished with lofty ITA national rankings of No. 14 and No. 25, respectively.
A match at Penn State (Feb. 4) preps the Panthers for their first ACC contest of the season which comes on the road at Louisville on February 7.
The following weekend, Pitt will play its final non-conference matches of the season against Duquesne and Eastern Michigan which is the start of a four-match home-stand.
Pitt then entertains Notre Dame on February 22 and Virginia on February 27. Both the Fighting Irish (No. 19) and Cavaliers (No. 7) finished ranked inside the ITA top-20 last season, while UVA lost in the Elite 8 to Stanford.
Other ACC home matches include Boston College (March 13), Wake Forest (March 15), Virginia Tech (March 22), Florida State (April 12) and Georgia Tech (April 17).
Along with Louisville, conference road matches see the Panthers visit Syracuse (March 1), Duke (March 28), North Carolina (March 29), Clemson (April 3), NC State (April 4) and Miami (April 19).
Following the Miami match, Pitt will have three days off before participating in ACC Tournament which is scheduled for April 23-26 in Cary, N.C.
The Panthers are coming off their fall season in which they played in some of the toughest tournaments in the country. Overall, Pitt had a singles record of 43-62 and a doubles mark of 21-26.
Be sure to follow the Panthers on Twitter: @PittTennis