PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The Rutgers women's tennis team is set to compete at ITA Regionals from Oct. 10-15. The six-day tournament will be hosted by the University of Pennsylvania at the Hecht Tennis Center. The Scarlet Knights will bring their all eight student-athletes to the tournament in hopes of qualifying for ITA Sectional Championships.
RU is looking to build off of success at last years ITA Regionals. Doubles pair
Tara Chilton and
Yana Gurevich made the quarterfinals finishing in the top-eight, while three Scarlet Knights made the round of 16 in singles play.
The singles qualifying draw will begin Thursday at 9 a.m. with six Scarlet Knights competing.
Minchae Kim and
Mai Nguyen have already qualified for the main draw and will start their singles play on Friday. Doubles play will begin with the main draw on Saturday.
Last Time Out
The Scarlet Knights competed at the Bulldog Invitational in New Haven, Connecticut from September 20-22. RU played host school Yale on Friday followed by Brown and Boston University on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Rutgers collected 22 wins on the weekend, including seven singles and 15 doubles victories.
Minchae Kim and freshman
Karina Jumazhanova picked up two wins as a doubles pair while every RU player recorded a singles win. Freshman
Zeynep Ilker was perfect in her singles play, for 3-for-3 over the weekend.
National Recognition
On the heels of the 2024 spring season, alum Tara Chilton and assistant coach Hailey Barrett have both garnered regional and national praise from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) with the announcement of the end of the year awards. Chilton earned the prestigious Arthur Ashe Award while Barrett was named the Northeast Region Assistant Coach of the Year.
Chilton, who came to Rutgers in the fall of 2023 at the start of her junior season, has made a long-lasting impact on the Scarlet Knights. During her time On The Banks Chilton has excelled in all areas including in tennis, academics and volunteering in her community.
"The Arthur Ashe Award is a prestigious ITA Award and Tara is a perfect recipient," head coach Hilary Ritchie said. "Tara always strives for excellence. In her two years at Rutgers, she made a big impact on our team, the business school and the student-athlete community overall."
The ITA Assistant Coach of the Year honors an assistant coach who has exhibited outstanding leadership in ways that contribute to on and off-court team performance. These are qualities that assistant coach Barrett has exemplified since arriving On The Banks.
"Hailey is so deserving of this award," Ritchie said. "She wears an incredible number of hats to help this team and the individual student-athletes as well. During a time when there is a lot of uncertainty in college athletics, Hailey always remains positive and puts her passion for tennis first."
New Kids on the Banks
In the offseason, head coach Hilary Ritchie welcomed four newcomers to the team including two freshman in Zeynep Ilker and Karina Jumazhanova in addition to two transfers in Zuzanna Frankowska and Zhou "Cindy" Xintong.
Zuzanna Frankowska played her freshman year at Baylor and hails from Kobylka, Poland. In the fall of 2023, she made her debut at the TCU Fall Invitational and went onto pick up four singles wins and a doubles victory throughout the slate. In the 2024 spring, she played two matches at the No. 5 lineup spot and picked up a doubles win against the Iowa State on the third court.
Zhou "Cindy" Xintong spent her rookie season at Fordham, where she excelled. In the 2023 fall, she went 4-3 in singles play and 6-1 in doubles. She saw action in 18 of the team's 22 spring matches, going 8-5 in singles play, earning victories on courts No. 3, 4 and 5. The Mississauga, Ontario, Canada native went 11 matches without a loss, picking up big two-set wins over George Washington, Brown, Richmond and George Mason.
Originally from Bursa, Turkey Zeynep Ilker comes to Rutgers with a wealth of international playing experience. A member of Turkey's National Team, she has taken part in European Championships. She spent several years competing on the ITF Junior Tour and in 2023 reached a career-best ranking of 408.
Karina Jumazhanova also brings lots of worldly experience to the team, coming from Almaty, Kazakhstan. She mainly competed in Women's 15k events on the ITF World Tennis Tour, reaching a career-high ITF ranking of 178. The freshman also saw action in the U16 Juniors Billie Jean King Cup, representing Kazakhstan. She is an ITF J4 Doubles Winner and Finalist, in addition to being a Kazakhstan Doubles Finalist Champion.
The Returners
In addition to the four newcomers, Ritchie also welcomed back four returners in Jackie Lopez, Minchae Kim, Mai Nguyen and Naomi Karki.
Lopez compiled eight singles wins across the 2023 season, finishing the campaign on a three-match winning streak. She clinched RU's first-ever victory over Minnesota in addition to the win over NJIT.
Kim finished the spring campaign with a strong 11 singles and nine doubles victories, including eight in Big Ten competition. She helped RU earn a win in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament with a singles win over Michigan State.
Nguyen finished her sophomore campaign with 18 victories, including 11 in singles competitions. She was featured twice in the ITA National Doubles rankings with partner Amira Badawi and defeated Penn State's 69th-ranked doubles pair with partner Yana Gurevich. In addition, Nguyen earned a singles victory to help RU top Michigan State in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
Karki finished freshman campaign with a combined 14 wins across singles and doubles competitions. Recorded first-career conference singles win over Michigan State and provided the dual-clinching win to help Rutgers complete its comeback and beat UConn.
Looking Ahead
Rutgers will have a quick turnaround after ITA Regionals, when they play in the Brown Invite in Providence, R.I. from Oct. 18-20.
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