With the weather clearing up nicely on the Farm, it only made sense that the No. 1 Stanford women’s tennis team would be all set to head for the stormy Midwest. After all, bad weather has been the norm for the Cardinal so far this season.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Stanford women were ready to fly to the 2008 ITA National Women’s Team Indoor Championships in Madison, Wis., before inclement weather in the Midwest kept them waiting once again.

“Over my twenty years, I think we have a very travel-experienced team,” head coach Lele Forood said. “To be delayed is not really messing anyone up. We’ll be driving to Madison in the morning and practice courts are in the afternoon so we’ll deal with it.”

The numbers obviously don’t lie for the Cardinal women: 14 appearances, 64 wins, 14 finals appearances and nine championships at the Indoors.

Today, the Cardinal looks to start another title run at the ITAs — its fourth in five years — as it enters the first round of the 2008 Indoors at Madison, Wisc. against No. 11 Baylor at 1:30 pm.

Stanford enters the Indoors as the number one team in the ITA rankings with 748 votes and 8 of the 10 first place ballots. However, coach Forood does not look too much into the rankings.

“As we’ve discussed a month ago, the number one team is the team that wins the tournament,” Forood said. “The seedings or rankings don’t mean anything right now. It’s a slippery slope and if we win the tournament I’ll be happy to call us the number one team.”

Known for its extremely competitive draw, the tournament’s competitors include No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 Northwestern, No. 4 Georgia Tech, No. 6 Georgia, No. 7 California, No. 8 Southern California and No. 9 University of Miami (Florida) — and those are just the top eight seeds.

Along with last year’s runner-up Notre Dame, sixteen teams will compete over four days to crown a champion.

“Well, it’s very hard to project forward in this tournament,” Forood said of the draw. “I think what it shows right now is that maybe no one is too far ahead of anyone else. Right now, we can’t think of anything but Baylor.”

Beyond pure accolades, the Championship is also a great indicator of which team will stick around in May during the NCAA Championships — six of the last seven NCAA champions have made it to the finals of the ITA Indoors the same year they won.

In her first year as coach at Stanford, Lele Forood became the first female head coach to win the NCAA team title. During that same season, her squad also captured the Indoor title — coincidentally enough, Baylor was also Stanford’s first round opponent that year.

Stanford is 1-0 all-time against the Bears, its only matchup coming in a 7-0 win at the 2001 Indoors.

Though Baylor has only four appearances at the Championships to the Cardinal’s 20, the Bears are no easy opponent.

Their squad is led by three-time All-American and 2005 NCAA Individual National Champion Zuzana Zemenova. The Bears also boast five players in the top-100 of the singles rankings and two duos in the top-50 for doubles.

This season, Baylor has trumped Stanford in their individual meetings.

In October, Zemenova dispatched sophomore Lindsay Burdette at the ITA All-American Championships, 6-4, 6-4. Baylor’s Lenka Broosova also defeated senior Whitney Deason 6-0, 6-4 at the ITA All-American qualifiers.

“We know their top players from the individual tournaments,” Forood said. “But, they’re a completely non-American team so it’s a bit of a surprise. We don’t really know their players very well, but they’re good players and they’re tough.”

Fortunately, Stanford is not without its own arsenal of top players and talent.

The Cardinal is coming off a season-opening 6-1 victory over UNLV, in which it saw strong performances from both returning players and new freshmen.

Last year, Stanford’s attempt at its fourth straight title at the Indoors was stymied by a Georgia Tech upset. The 4-3 loss broke the Cardinal’s string of 89 straight victories, a streak that spanned three national title runs.

This year, Stanford and Georgia Tech are slated to potentially meet up again in another semifinal matchup of two powerhouse teams.

However, the team must first take care of business when it faces the Bears.

“We look forward to playing Baylor,” Forood finished.