Sooners Open Big 12 Championships with Baylor

^#43 Oklahoma vs. ^#15Baylor (4 p.m. CT)

April 28, 2017 | Headington Family Tennis Center

Live Stats

Live Video

Twitter

NORMAN – The No. 43 Oklahoma women's tennis team opens the 2017 Big 12 Championships action on Friday at 4 p.m. CT as it faces No. 15 Baylor in the quarterfinals at the Headington Family Tennis Center.

Oklahoma

The Sooners (14-7, 4-5 Big 12) come into the match as the No. 6 seed in the tournament. Oklahoma struggled with the front end of its conference slate, dropping the first four matches before bouncing back to close out the regular season with four victories in its last five league contests.

In its last two matches, Oklahoma notched back-to-back sweeps of Iowa State and West Virginia, defeating both the Cyclones and the Mountaineers on the road.

Lily Miyazaki represents the Sooners in the ITA singles rankings at No. 33. Miyazaki is 13-4 on the season from the No. 1 line, and has won her last four matches heading into postseason play.

Freshmen Julie Byrne and Ann Selim continue to impress for OU. Byrne has compiled an 11-4 record in her freshman campaign, working her way to the No. 3 spot in the lineup after opening the season on court six. With her 12-4 record, Selim owns the second-most singles wins by a Sooner this spring, and all but one of her victories have come in straight sets.

In doubles play, Byrne and Malene Stripp are No. 76 in the latest ITA release and have compiled an 8-4 overall record on court one.

Scouting Baylor

Baylor (20-5, 7-2 Big 12) comes into the conference tournament as the No. 3 seed overall. The Bears' only conference losses were to then-No. 7 Oklahoma State in Stillwater and at then-No. 9 Texas Tech.

Baylor enters Friday's contest on a seven-match winning streak, with its last win a 4-0 rout of then-No. 27 Kansas to close Big 12 play.

The Bears are led by Blair Shankle, who at No. 5 in the ITA poll is the highest-ranked singles player in the Big 12. Shankle owns a 15-2 overall record at No. 1 singles, including an 8-4 record against ranked opponents. The senior was named Big 12 Player of the Week for the fourth time in the conference's final regular season awards release, and enters Friday's contest on a six-match winning streak.

Rhiann Newborn also represents Baylor in ITA singles rankings at No. 114. Newborn 13-4 between courts one, two and three.

In doubles action, Shankle and Karina Traxler are ranked No. 34 in the nation after compiling a 6-1 mark during conference play.

The Last Time They Met

The teams last met on March 10 in Norman, when then-No. 10 Baylor defeated then-No. 47 OU in the Sooners' conference opener. The Bears snapped Sooners' five-match winning streak.

Then-No. 11 Shankle defeated then-No. 22 Miyazaki in a battle of top-25 players on court one, 6-2, 7-5, to clinch the match for Baylor.

Series History

Baylor leads the all-time series, 18-1. The Sooners' sole win came on April 16, 2004, when Oklahoma topped the Bears 4-3 in Waco.

Match Info

First serve is set for 4 p.m. CT. Tickets can be purchased in person at the time of the event or online here. If the Sooners were to win, OU would advance to take on Oklahoma State, Kansas or West VIrginia in a semifinal match on Saturday at 2 p.m. CT.

Live stats for the match will be available here. Live streaming via FloTennis can be found here.

For updates, follow @OU_WTennis on Twitter.