Tennis Championships Central
Bracket

MOBILE, Ala. – The University of South Alabama women's tennis team's quest for a Sun Belt Conference championship starts Friday when the third-seeded Jaguars face No. 6 seed Louisiana-Monroe at 11:30 a.m. at City Park Tennis Center in New Orleans.

USA is searching for its first league crown since 2003. The winner of the championships will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

South Alabama enters the weekend with a 14-2 record, the program's best entering the Sun Belt Championships since 1997.

"First of all, it was a great regular season," Jaguar head coach Jaco Keyser said. "Where we stand right now, I'm very happy about it. I think we're in a good place and playing some really good tennis, and going into the conference tournament, I think we're the team to beat, so hopefully we can keep it going.

"All eight players have the same strength. I think we can come at people in numbers, we don't give away points—if someone is going to beat us they're going to have to play four good points."

The Jags were handed just their second setback of the season last week, dropping a 4-1 decision to No. 67 North Texas. Their match the next day against Texas-Arlington, seeded second in this weekend's tournament, was called off with South Alabama leading 2-1.

"Those two matches were so important because I think it made us a better team from a match-playing perspective," Keyser said. "Against North Texas, I thought we played a good match. North Texas is a good team and a good program. They played the match situations pretty good, won the big points and just played a little bit tougher match than we did. We learned a lot from that match, then turned around against Texas-Arlington, who, to be honest, is a better team than North Texas, we stepped up, made some good adjustments and played some great tennis."

No. 66 Georgia State earned the top seed in this weekend's draw and will face the winner of No. 8 seed Louisiana-Lafayette and No. 9 seed Western Kentucky. UTA will take on No. 7 Arkansas State.

"The way our conference sets up right now, there are eight teams who can win this tournament," Keyser noted. "To be honest, it doesn't matter which side you're on. You're going to have three quality matches and everyone can beat everyone. That's the good thing about the conference: we're becoming a strong tennis conference. The other side of that is, there are no easy matches, so each match you have to come out ready to play."

The Jags are meeting their quarterfinal opponent for the first time since the 2010 championships—a 4-0 ULM victory—and lead the series 6-4. The Warhawks (8-9) have won four of their last five outings and are a combined 22-8 this season at the top two flights.

"They're always a good team," Keyser said. "I know a lot of their players; they're very feisty. It's one of those matches I feel like we should win, it's just a matter of how difficult we're going to make it on ourselves. If we're prepared and ready to go, we should be able to take care of it."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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