With each player having played in one tournament each, junior Rachael White and senior Marisa Lambropoulos were selected to compete in the All-American Qualifying Tournament in Pacific Palisades, Calif., starting Tuesday.

For the 24th consecutive year, it will take place at the Riviera Country Club and is considered to boast the deepest field of any women’s national collegiate tournament, including preseason No. 7-ranked singles player Nicole Gibbs of Stanford.

The Illini tandem enter the tournament as the No. 56-ranked doubles pairing, but those rankings mean nothing in Lambropoulos’ eyes.

“It’s definitely something cool to see, but rankings I don’t think are that important or really show that much about a team,” she said. “I think an unranked team can be very good and sometimes ranked teams aren’t the best, but it’s definitely cool to see and hopefully we’ll live up to it and keep improving.”

The duo will get its first taste of the tough competition against the No. 20-ranked pairing Kate Fuller and Lauren Herring of Georgia.

Lambropoulos made her season debut this past weekend partnering with freshman Julia Jamieson at the Wildcat Invitational.

It was her first competitive action for the Illini since suffering a wrist injury last season.

“I felt good playing with Julia,” Lambropoulos said. “I was able to work on a lot of things that Rachael and I are going to be doing here in California.”

Despite practicing together and individually last week, the two members of the Orange and Blue said they could have used more practice together. Still, they are going to rely on their close relationship to succeed on the court.

“We get along really well off court and that really carries onto the court,” White said. “We work well together and we know we’ve been practicing a ton, but we probably could have used a little more, so we just have to go out and be aggressive and play the best we can without having practiced as much together.”

White will also compete in singles action as the No. 67-ranked player, beginning play against No. 44 ranked Christina Ngo of Georgia Tech.

After failing to meet her expectations at the Duke Invitational from Sept. 16-18, she has been practicing whenever she has time.

“I’ve been trying to play as many sets as possible, and I’ve been playing a lot of those and have been coming in for a little extra hitting when I have the time to get prepared and really make sure I can do my best,” White said. “I have been focusing more on my singles play and just kind of having a good attitude and looking forward to being out here and getting the experience to play a bunch of top players.”

Ranked or not, assistant coach Georgia Rose is just glad they were selected to participate in a top tournament and expects her two players to perform well.

“We’re sending them because we think they could potentially be a good doubles team and as long as they can play aggressive, they’ll be very successful,” she said.

Rose also has been impressed by White’s preparation and is ready for the tough competition.

“Obviously it’s a great honor to get into this tournament, singles or doubles,” Rose said. “She’s definitely proven she’s one of the top players in the nation and I think she’s done a great job before this fall and is ready for this tournament.”