Thursday, March 27, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
To the casual observer it sounds big. Real big. But to the UNLV women's tennis team, it's nothing special.
The Lady Rebel Challenge, an event featuring four of the nation's top college programs, started this morning at UNLV's Fertitta Tennis Complex.
UNLV, ranked No. 14, opened with No. 32 Kansas, while No. 6 Arizona State faced No. 10 Georgia at noon. UNLV gets Georgia Friday and ASU Saturday, with both matches at 10 a.m.
"To be the best, we have to play the best," said head coach Ola Malmqvist.
But that doesn't mean the Rebels are pumped up more for this weekend than any other. They claim no extra intensity.
"You don't think about (the other team's rankings)," said Marianne Vallin, whose current No. 11 collegiate singles ranking is the best in UNLV history. "Every match you go in to win, so you can't think like that or you're going to lose. You just go out and play hard."
Vallin, a senior Swede, has a 25-7 singles mark this season. She is just four victories shy of Jolene Watanabe's UNLV career record of 120. Vallin already owns the records for season victories (37 in 1994), season winning percentage (.804 in 1994) and career winning percentage (.753).
"With the schedule we have, the teams are so good we have to be ready every match," she said. "Everybody is high ranked."
Where this weekend can pay off is in helping the Rebels attain their preseason goals. According to Malmqvist, the team wants to win the Western Athletic Conference tournament and qualify for the NCAA finals, which include the nation's top 16 schools.
"I said we should get into the top 12," Vallin said, "but everybody laughed at me."
Everybody except upstart freshman Gee Gee Garvin, who asserts the Rebels can crack the top 10. But even Garvin, ranked with Vallin as the No. 26 doubles team in the country, won't admit this set of matches is critical in bringing her wish to fruition.
"If we win every match, everything will take care of itself" said the Vista, Calif., native. "There's no pressure. You just go in and do your part."
But that's not something the Rebels consistently have done this season. While a loss to No. 2 Stanford is the only blemish on the Rebels' record this year, they have yet to defeat a team ranked higher than 18th. A match at No. 9 Pepperdine last month was rained out.
"As a team overall, we haven't played great, but we've competed well," Malmqvist said. "We haven't been intimidated. We find a way to win. And against good competition, that will have to happen."
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