SYRACUSE, N.Y.—The Columbia women's tennis team opens its spring 2019 season when it travels to Upstate New York for a dual match at No. 24 Syracuse Sunday. The match will begin at 11 a.m. at Drumlins Country Club. Fans may follow action via live stats at this link.
 
Columbia Women's Tennis plays Syracuse for the third consecutive season. The Lions dropped a 5-2 decision at Syracuse last year and defeated the Orange 6-1 in 2017. Columbia is 2-3 all-time vs. Syracuse in the series dating back to 1989.
 
Syracuse will host Brown on Saturday, Jan. 19 at Drumlins Country Club for its first dual match of the season.
 
Last year, youthful Columbia accumulated a 12-8 overall and 4-3 Ivy League record. Nine experienced Lions return to the squad including two players who earned All-Ivy League honors in 2018: sophomore Christie Wan (Second Team Singles and Second Team Doubles) and sophomore Jennifer Kerr (Second Team Singles). Wan played primarily at the No. 1 singles position and No. 1 doubles position and finished 9-20 in singles last year. Kerr played at No. 2 singles and accumulated a spectacular 21-9 record and team-best 6-1 Ivy League slate. She also garnered 2018 ITA Northeast Region Player to Watch honors.
 
Also returning the Lions include senior Andrea Kevakian, who has accumulated a 60-25 singles and 42-33 career doubles record. Kevakian led the Lions with a 23-7 singles record last year. Senior Sarah Hu has seen significant action with a 34-29 career singles and 23-24 career doubles, while junior Ali Pollack has gone 34-21 in singles and 17-30 in doubles. Also playing keys roles are sophomore Paulina Ferrari, who was injured during the majority of the 2017-18 season, junior Renee Ren, sophomore Sarah Rahman and junior Brianna Williams.
 
Those players, along with tennisrecruiting.net's No. 12 ranked recruiting class make up the 2018-19 Lions.
 
Syracuse is coming off a 2017-18 season which saw it finish 17-8 overall and garner a No. 25 national ranking. In November, 2018, three Orange student-athletes were ranked in the Oracle/ITA's most recent singles and doubles rankings: Gabriela Knutson and Sofya Golubovskaya are ranked No. 43 and No. 92 respectively in singles, while Golubovskaya and Sofya Treshcheva are ranked No. 24 in doubles.
 
COLUMBIA MATCH NOTES
 
*Columbia is coming off a successful fall season which saw 10 of its 12 players register records of .500 or better. In singles, first-year Akanksha Bhan posted a 9-2 singles record to lead the Lions. First-year Caitie Sullivan and junior Renee Ren both contributed 7-1 records, senior Sarah Hu finished 8-3 and senior Andrea Kevakian went 6-2, Wan posted an 8-4 record, first-year Melissa Sakar at 7-4, while Kerr and first-year Yekaterina Alferova both finished 9-6.
 
*In doubles, Bhan and sophomore Paulina Ferrari finished 9-2, while Wan and Kevakian combined for a 9-4 overall record. Additionally, Kerr and Hu added a 6-2 record. Columbia's fall statistics are listed at this link.
 
*According to tennisrecruiting.net, Columbia welcomed the nation's No. 12 ranked incoming 2018 recruiting class in September. The four newcomers include first-years Melissa Sakar, Akanksha Bhan, Yekaterina Alferova and Caitie Sullivan. All four were ranked among the nation's top-100 players in the 2018 tennisrecruiting.net class: Sakar (No. 18), Bhan (No. 28), Alferova (No. 35) and Sullivan (No. 75).
 
*Head Coach Ilene Weintraub, CC '02 enters her 12^th season at the helm of the Columbia women's tennis program. The winningest coach in school history with 110 dual match victories, Weintraub guided the Lions to their first Ivy League Championship in 2013, led the program to a top-40 national ranking in 2016, captured two ECAC Championships (2014 and 2016) and has recruited three national top-15 recruiting classes (No. 6 in 2015, No. 10 in 2017 and No. 12 in 2018) and four national top-20 recruiting classes in the last five years to Columbia. She was named the ITA Northeast Region Coach of the Year in both 2014 and 2016.
 
*Weintraub is joined by first-year assistant coach TJ Nelson and volunteer assistant coach Carlos Carrera. Nelson served as the program's volunteer assistant coach last year.