ORLANDO – The No. 24 UCF women’s tennis is back in action this Sunday at the USTA National Campus, kicking off the 2026 dual-match season with an exciting doubleheader. The Knights will take on the South Florida Bulls at 12 PM before closing the day against the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats at 4:30 PM.
LAST TIME OUT
The Knights enter the dual-match season riding momentum from a promising fall campaign that highlighted the emergence of two dynamic doubles teams.
Jade Psonka and Marina Gatell delivered a standout performance at the ITA Southeast Regionals in October, surging to the quarterfinals with an impressive run. Olivia Bergler and Lauren Seye matched that success, also advancing to the quarterfinal round before narrowly falling in a hard-fought 8(7)–7(0) tiebreak to Florida’s Xinyi Nong and Nikola Daubnerova, a duo currently ranked No. 17 in the latest ITA release. Bergler and Seye closed the fall with a strong 5-3 record, including a perfect 2-0 showing at the UNF Invite to wrap up the season. Their consistent play earned them a No. 50 ranking in the final 2026 ITA doubles standings, and the pair looks poised to carry that momentum into the spring.
Coming off a historic spring, UCF returns as the reigning Big 12 regular-season champions after capturing the first team conference title in program history. The Knights turned heads both conference-wide and nationally, climbing as high as No. 17 in the country and earning their 10th NCAA Tournament appearance. That success has set the tone for 2026, as UCF was picked to finish second in the Big 12 preseason poll and opened the year ranked No. 24 in the ITA preseason rankings.
UCF has now appeared in the ITA Poll for 14 consecutive weeks, ranking No. 20 on Feb. 12, 2025, and most recently checking in at No. 24 on Jan. 7, 2026. The Knights are one of four Big 12 programs featured in the opening 2026 rankings, joined by Oklahoma State (No. 10), Texas Tech (No. 20), and Baylor (No. 25).