The Georgia women’s tennis team will compete in three fall tournaments this season, announced by Head Coach Jeff Wallace Thursday morning.
The Bulldogs will begin their campaign with two road tournaments. Georgia will travel to Tuscaloosa, Ala., from Oct. 9-11 and then to Knoxville, Tenn., Oct. 16-18. They will finish off their fall slate at home at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex from Oct. 23-25.
Last spring, before the NCAA and SEC ceased spring competition due to COVID-19 health concerns, the Bulldogs were poised for another successful season. Georgia was 8-2 overall, 3-0 in conference play, and ended the season with a three-game win streak over SEC foes. With their final clinch of the year over Mississippi State, Coach Wallace earned his 750th win as head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. He is one of three coaches in collegiate women’s tennis with over 600 wins and is currently the winningest active head coach in all of women’s collegiate tennis.
The Bulldogs will return all eight members of their squad back to Athens this year, including seniors Elena Christofi and Marta Gonzalez. Christofi was named an ITA All-American in doubles, was a NCAA 2020 Woman of the Year Nominee and was the Georgia recipient of the Boyd McWhorter Post-Graduate Scholarship. Gonzalez returns to the Bulldog program as one of the more veteran athletes on the squad. Having reached a career high ITA singles ranking of 10 and bolstering 75 career singles wins, Gonzalez was also the recipient of the Cissie Leary Sportsmanship Award last season.
In addition to this year’s returners, the Bulldogs will welcome freshman Ariana Arseneault who will see her first taste of collegiate tennis this fall. A native of Ontario, Canada, Arseneault was regarded as one of the top international juniors. She had a great run in the ITF J1 event in Repentingy, Canada where she posted wins over three world ranked players including a straight set victory over Zhouxuan Bai (China), who was ranked No. 27 at the time.
Along with Arseneault, the Bulldogs will welcome Ziva Falkner to the roster in January. Falkner will join the program from Slovenia, and brings an impressive resume to the lineup including a No. 42 ITF world juniors ranking, and was a doubles finalist at the 2020 Australian Open Junior Championships.