Rice University
Rice Invite
Women's Tennis Set for Busy Opening Week
9/18/2025 1:12:00 PM | Women's Tennis
Host Rice Invitational, 3 to play in ITA All-American
Rice Invitational Draws
ITA All-American Results
Rice kicks off the 2025-26 women's tennis season this weekend as the Owls will host competitors from seven Texas schools in their annual Rice Fall Invitational, while three Owls will travel to Cary, North Carolina for the ITA Women's All-American.
Play in the Rice Invitational opens at 9 a.m. on Friday, with two rounds of doubles followed by one round of singles at the George R. Brown Tennis Center, featuring players from Rice, Houston, Sam Houston, SMU, Texas A&M, North Texas, UTRGV, and UTSA. Play continues on Saturday with one round of both singles and doubles and wraps up on Sunday with a final round of singles. Returning Owls Anushka Ashar, Francesca Maguina, Fernanda Martinez, Valentina Ponce, Nithesa Selvaraj will be joined by newcomers Daniela Chica and Ema Mravcova in making their season debuts on their home courts.
Darya Schwartzman, Divna Ratkovic and newcomer Uma Bakaityte will open their season at the All-American. Schwartzman and Bakaityte are one of 32 doubles teams who have qualified for the double main draw, which begins play on Wednesday, but both begin play in the pre-qualifying singles round on Saturday. Rakovic, the defending American Conference singles champion, will open play in the qualifying round of singles on Monday.
I think it's been a really good first few weeks of practice, Rice head women's coach Elizabeth Schmidt said. I'm looking forward to getting the girls back out on the competition court and putting into practice what we've been working on against other teams. For a lot of them, it's going to be the first tournament in a while, but it's nice to also be at home to start off the season. Daria, Uma, and Divna have earned the opportunity to go play at the All-American, and it's a great opportunity for them to start the season against some great competition.
Schmidt is excited to see how the combined efforts of the team in practice over the last month translate into competition.
I think I can speak for our whole coaching staff that we're pleased with the work ethic, the focus, and the buy-in to the concepts we've stressed. Now it's taking it into competition and having that same mindset through the course of a match. There is no better way to improve than to put yourself up against other teams.
Players Mentioned
