Though the Vanderbilt women's tennis team comes off its 11th consecutive Sweet 16 appearance, the Commodores have higher hopes for this year.

The Commodores begin play this weekend in Greenville, SC at the Furman Fall Classic, where recent graduate Taka Bertrand and current senior Courtney Ulery captured singles championships last season. The doubles team of Bertrand and junior Catherine Newman won a doubles title at the event.

For this season, Newman was ranked No. 40 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association preseason rankings at singles, while Ulery was rewarded with a No. 56 ranking. Though the two have not played a doubles match together, the pair has been pre-ranked No. 35 in the doubles division by the ITA.

"I don't think (rankings) are completely accurate," Newman said. "Sometimes they are relatively, but I think they're a little messed up."

Coach Geoff McDonald, the longest-tenured coach at Vanderbilt, leads the team as he now enters his 15th season. The women's tennis program has had an unparalleled history of success at Vanderbilt under him, including appearances in the national championship in 2001 and the Final Four in 2004. The team has garnered five top-10 rankings at the end of the season, and every one of his teams at Vanderbilt has finished the season ranked in the top 16.

"He knows what he's doing," Newman said. "He genuinely cares a lot about all of us, and he wants us all to get better as players and as people."

This year, the Commodores will be without Bertrand, who won 124 singles matches at Vanderbilt, the highest mark in school history. Also, they will be missing Amanda Taylor, a two-time All-American who rose to as high as No. 9 in the ITA doubles rankings. This year's team returns four players and has four freshmen.

"We're pretty young, so we want to gain experience as we go and get better as a team," Newman said. "Obviously, our goal is always to win the SEC championship and get to the top 16 of the NCAA Tournament."

Ulery, the team's lone senior, has never been on a team that advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament; last year Vanderbilt fell 4-1 in the Sweet 16 to No. 4 Florida.

"I would love to advance past the Sweet 16 because that's as far I've been the last two years, and that's as far as Courtney's been the last three years," Newman said.

Vanderbilt will go around to several tournaments before returning to Nashville for the June Stewart Invitational on Oct. 17.