THE Tennis (Team) Streak Ends... Stanford Loses
There’s been a lot of talk in tennis circles recently about Novak Djokovic’s incredible match winning streak and when/will it end?! Another equally impressive, albeit slightly different tennis streak did end this week. The Stanford University Women’s tennis team,
which holds the NCAA record for longest home winning streak at 184 matches (the streak began in 1999), lost an absolute heartbreaker on Tuesday night in Palo Alto, California. In the final match of the 2011 Women’s NCAA Tennis Team Final, Mallory Burdette was two points from extending the streak, but ended up losing 8-6 in the third set tie-breaker to Lauren Embree of the University of Florida, who ended the year on a 24 match winning streak of her own!
During its winning streak, Stanford had beaten the University of Florida twice since 1999 in the NCAA tournament. In fact, Stanford defeated Florida for the NCAA Team Championship last year in Georgia. This year was a unique situation because Stanford hosted a combined Men’s and Women’s NCAA Tennis Team Championships and clearly there were high hopes for the women to snare the title and possibly even the men to pull off a surprise, but it was not to be in 2011. Over 2800 fans watched the electrifying NCAA team final at Stanford, but all tennis eyes will be on Roland Garros tomorrow to see if Novak Djokovic can keep his winning streak alive when he completes his suspended match against Juan Martin del Potro.
During its winning streak, Stanford had beaten the University of Florida twice since 1999 in the NCAA tournament. In fact, Stanford defeated Florida for the NCAA Team Championship last year in Georgia. This year was a unique situation because Stanford hosted a combined Men’s and Women’s NCAA Tennis Team Championships and clearly there were high hopes for the women to snare the title and possibly even the men to pull off a surprise, but it was not to be in 2011. Over 2800 fans watched the electrifying NCAA team final at Stanford, but all tennis eyes will be on Roland Garros tomorrow to see if Novak Djokovic can keep his winning streak alive when he completes his suspended match against Juan Martin del Potro.
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