ORLANDO, Fla. – Three UCF women's tennis singles players and one doubles tandem highlight Wednesday's release of the Oracle/ITA singles, doubles and team rankings. Valeriya Zeleva's new singles ranking of No. 25 is the highest in program history.
The Knights check in at No. 18 this week, one spot lower than the previous week after not playing a match. This is the first week of 2021 that the Oracle/ITA team rankings being done by computer, which automatically selects a certain amount of a team's best victories and places them accordingly. The Black and Gold are at No. 17 in 2021's first release of the Tennis Channel/USTA College Tennis Top 25 which is right where they left off at the end of the 2020 season.
UCF has a trio of ranked singles players, with No. 25 Zeleva leading the way, followed by No. 33 Rebeka Stolmar and No. 93 Evgeniya Levashova. Zeleva's new ranking is the highest in program history, breaking the previous best of No. 27 which was set by herself back in March of 2019.
Zeleva has had a tremendous season to this point. After losing her first two matches of the campaign, she has pieced together an eight-match winning streak and has beaten five ranked opponents along the way. She's shared time at the top two spots in singles but has primarily seen action at the No. 1 position, tallying five victories there. Zeleva sat at No. 67 in this year's preseason singles rankings.
Stolmar is just one spot shy of her career-best singles ranking of No. 32 which she set in February of 2020. The UCF captain has shared time among the top three sports in singles. She is a perfect 2-0 at the top position where she beat Florida's No. 2 McCartney Kessler and Stetson's Danel Ashirova, both in straight sets. Stolmar was ranked 42nd in singles to start the 2021 campaign.
Capping off the ranked Knights in singles play is Levashova, who rises two spots from her preseason ranking of No. 95. Levashova has spent time at the top three singles spots this year, going a perfect 3-0 record at the No. 2 position.
Stolmar and Mattel check in at No. 32 as a tandem. They're a hair below .500 on the season and have played at both the No. 1 and No. 2 spot in doubles.
UP NEXT
The Knights will be back in action on Sunday as they host SMU to begin conference play.
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