WACO, Texas – The 19th-ranked Baylor women’s tennis team will take on eighth-seeded Kansas at 9 a.m. on Friday in the quarterfinal round of the Big 12 Championships. The match will be BU’s opener of the event, which takes place Thursday-Sunday, April 25-28 in Norman, Okla., at the Headington Family Tennis Center.

 

The Rundown

- The Baylor women enter the weekend in search of their seventh Big 12 Championship title in eight seasons. The Lady Bears are the No. 1 seed this weekend for the eighth time in nine years.

 

- Baylor, 15-13 overall, finished tied for first in the league with Texas Tech, after compiling a league record of 8-1.

 

- Baylor is currently ranked No. 19 in the country with one ranked singles player, No. 10 Ema Burgic, and one ranked doubles tandem, Burgic and Victoria Kisialeva at No. 8.

 

- The Lady Bears ended the season with eight consecutive victories, including wins over 26th-ranked Texas (4-3) and 2013 Big 12 co-champions, 15th-ranked Texas Tech (4-3).

 

- As a team, Baylor compiled a 9-13 mark against ranked opponents, while going a perfect 6-0 versus unranked teams. All of BU’s losses came against top-50 opponents.

 

 - Individually, Baylor’s 10th-ranked Burgic tallied an impressive 22-5 dual-match record in the top of the lineup in singles action. Burgic also enters the tournament on a 14-match win streak.

 

 - Baylor closed out the season winning the doubles point for nine-straight matches, its longest streak of the regular season.

 

 - The Lady Bears claimed three Big 12 Player of the Week honors this season. Burgic was honored three times, winning the award on March 11, April 9, and April 23. She is one of three BU players to accomplish that feat.

 

 - Freshman Kiah Generette completed the regular season with a 7-3 record over her last 10 matches. Generette notched an 8-1 mark in conference action, the second best on the squad.

 

 - Two Baylor student-athletes were named to the All-Academic Big 12 first team, Burgic and Megan Horter.

 

Baylor vs. Kansas

 

The last time Baylor met Kansas, the Lady Bears came out with a 5-2 victory against the Jayhawks on April 5, 2013 at the Hurd Tennis Center.

 

Baylor’s eighth-ranked duo of Burgic and Kisialeva swept past KU's Dylan Windom and Maria Jose Cardona, 8-2, at the top of the lineup. Alex Clay and Kiah Generette would follow up with an 8-5 decision on court 3 against Victoria Khanevskaya and Anastasija Trubica to secure the doubles point for the Lady Bears.

 

Baylor’s four additional points on the day all came from straight-set decisions in singles action. The Jayhawks placed two points on the board as Baylor's Kisialeva and Biryukova both retired from their matches.

 

In the all-time series, Baylor holds a 17-4 edge over Kansas. The Lady Bears have won the last 12 matches vs. the Jayhawks.

 

If Baylor wins the match vs. KU, the Lady Bears will face the winner of the No. 4 TCU/No.5 Oklahoma State match at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

 

Head Coach Joey Scrivano on Big 12 Championships

Opening Statement…

“I think the biggest thing for this team breaking through this last six weeks is that they should trust what we’re doing on a daily basis. That’s going to be the big question this weekend – because we’ve been two teams. In the first half of the season, we were a team that was trying to do it their own way and not trusting the formula. In the later part of the second half of the season, they finally just bought in. It’s going to be really interesting to see which team’s going to show up this weekend. I don’t know. You see it all the time. Some teams struggle with success. We’ve had a little bit of success and now we’ve got to handle that. I’ve seen teams keep pushing through and carry that momentum, and I’ve seen teams fold. I’m hoping that we’re a team that will continue to ride this wave and make a run.”

 

On his feelings toward this weekend…

“For about two days I felt pretty good. I get that feeling of, ‘Ok, we have to start preparing again. We’ve got to get mentally, emotionally, and physically ready for this other obstacle.’ It’s another obstacle, this weekend. We have the target on our back. There’s a lot of great things that come with that, but there’s a pressure that you’ve got to want to have. That’s the thing – we’ve had teams here that have relished under that pressure. They just wanted it, and they embraced it. They loved it. We’ll find out if we have that in us to do that.”