PISCATAWAY, N.J. – The Rutgers women's tennis team (0-1, 0-0 B1G) will take on the LIU Sharks (0-0) at the East Brunswick Racquet Club on Friday, Jan. 24 at 12 p.m.

Last Time Out

The Scarlet Knights fell on the road to Princeton in the season opener, 4-1.

Rutgers stole the doubles point with a 6-3 win from duo Minchae Kim and Karina Jumazhanova along with Mai Nguyen and Naomi Karki winning 7-5.

Recapping the 2024 Fall

RU is coming off a successful fall that consisted of a Brown Invite tournament victory as well as a quarterfinal appearance by Karki and Zhou in doubles play of the ITA Regionals.

Overall, the team amassed an impressive 55-33 record in singles. Frankowska paced the squad in singles play with 10 wins, while the duo of Karki-Zhou won five doubles matches to lead the team.

Recapping the 2024 Spring

The Scarlet Knights had their best season under head coach Hilary Ritchie, finishing with a 12-12 record and earning their second win in program history at the Big Ten Tournament. RU also picked up nine victories in non-conference play, including three shutouts.  

Rutgers started the spring 9-3, their best start since the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season. The team also added two Big Ten regular season wins, defeating Michigan State and Minnesota.  

Rutgers made history in the ITA rankings, claiming its first-ever team and doubles ranking. The Scarlet Knights reached as high as No. 68 in the polls while the pair of Amira Badawi and Mai Nguyen came in at a season-best No. 54.  

Graduate Student Yana Gurevich became the first Scarlet Knight in program history to earn All-Big Ten honors, after going 12-5 in conference play.

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.

History Against LIU

RU holds a 2-1 advantage in the all-time series against the Sharks. The two teams met in the spring of 2023 with the Scarlet Knights sweeping the 4-0 win.

Scouting the Sharks

This will be the first match of the spring campaign for the Sharks. Head coach Chad Davis, the reigning NEC Women's Tennis Coach of the Year, returns three starters to a program that has won two straight NEC championships, Lucia Garrigues, Clara Tardivel and Mia Tsoukalas.

Looking Ahead

The Scarlet Knights will stay home for a match against the NJIT Highlanders on Friday Jan. 31 at 12 p.m. at the East Brunswick Racquet Club. That same weekend, RU will travel down to Delaware on Sunday Feb. 2 to take on the Blue Hens at 2 p.m.

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