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BLACKSBURG, Va. – The Virginia Tech women’s tennis team opens the 2011 season on Sunday with matches against Richmond (10 a.m.) and UNC Greensboro (3:30 p.m.). Both matches will be played indoors at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center on the Virginia Tech campus.

An experienced group will take to the courts for the Virginia Tech women’s team this spring as the Hokies begin the season. Tech had no seniors on last year’s squad, which ended the year with a 10-13 record against a rugged schedule.

This year’s team will feature a nice balance of two seniors, four juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen.

The Hokies participated in six tournaments during the fall individual season in preparation for the spring schedule. At the USTA/ITA Atlantic Regional in Norfolk, Va., junior Martha Blakely demonstrated she is ready to return to the form she had as a freshman with an outstanding run to the semifinals. In other fall results, Blakely teamed with Holly Johnson to win the UNCW Invitational doubles title. Johnson and Yasmin Hamza received a preseason fall national doubles ranking of No. 34 and proved they were worthy with a 7-2 mark.

“Overall, there were a lot of positives throughout the fall season and some things we will continue to work on,” said eighth-year women’s head coach Terry Ann Zawacki-Woods. “I was pleased with how we finished the fall season with a strong performance at the Knight Invitational in Orlando, Fla.

“I feel our players had the opportunity to gain a tremendous amount of match experience and learned a lot about their games and what we need to accomplish in order to be ready for our upcoming season.”

Richmond, the Atlantic 10 preseason favorite and winner of seven of the last eight league titles, is 0-1 after opening the year last weekend with a 7-0 loss at No. 26 Virginia. The Hokies won last year’s meeting in Richmond, 6-1, but the Spiders lead the series 26-17.

This will be the season-opener UNC Greensboro and Tech leads the series 5-0. The Hokies won the last meeting, 7-0, at home on Feb. 16, 2008.

Live scoring for both matches will be available at http://www.hokiesports.com/wtennis/live/

For updates on Virginia Tech women's tennis, follow the Hokies on Twitter (@VT_WTennis).