Northwestern University Athletics
Former Wildcat Samantha Murray Climbs WTA World Rankings
7/27/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
July 27, 2011
View Murray's WTA World Ranking
EVANSTON, Ill. -- After an exceptional Northwestern career during which she was a four-time qualifier to the NCAA Singles Championship, Samantha Murray has continued her playing career at the next level in her native Great Britain and quickly risen in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) world rankings.
As of July 25, Murray checked in at exactly No. 500 in the world after debuting in the rankings near No. 1100 only five months ago. Along the way, Murray has advanced to the finals of two $10,000-purse tournaments and walked away a champion of two doubles tournaments of equal prize value.
In addition, Murray qualified for the main draw at the Nottingham $75,000+H Tournament, a pre-Wimbledon warm-up event, and took down multiple top-250-ranked opponents in the process. That success eventually helped Murray earn a spot in the pre-qualifying and wildcard playoff rounds for Wimbledon, where she then advanced through to the qualifying rounds in London.
"When I started at the beginning of the year my goal was to get inside the top 500 and I've just about done that already," Murray said. "So now getting inside 400 is my next target and I hope to reach that by the end of the year."
Murray has fallen victim to several unlucky draws in recent tournaments, which in many cases has only proven to her that she is not far off from reaching the next level.
"I have a habit of losing to the eventual winner or finalist, it's happened about seven times and become a bit of a running joke," Murray said. "In Spain I qualified for a larger tournament and won a round but lost to the No. 1 seed and a former world top-20 player, so I can't complain too much about that one."
In addition to becoming the third player in NU history to qualify for the NCAA Singles Championship all four years of her career, Murray also was a four-time All-Big Ten selection and was Northwestern's nominee for 2010 NCAA Woman of the Year. She compiled a singles record of 133-45 and also won over 120 doubles matches, helping the Wildcats to back-to-back ITA National Indoor Team championships (2009, 2010) and two No. 1 seeds for the NCAA Championships.
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