Lady Vols Announce Fall Competition Schedule

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – With a new school year freshly underway, the Tennessee women’s tennis team gears up for a strong fall competition schedule that will see the Lady Vols compete in eight tournaments, with the potential for a ninth if UT has a qualifier at the ITA National Fall Championship.

Tennessee’s fall schedule is highlighted by a pair of events taking place on Rocky Top, beginning with the 2022 ITA Ohio Valley Regional on October 19. The event runs through October 23 and will be played at Barksdale Stadium, Goodfriend Tennis Center and various sites around the Knoxville area. The Lady Vols have both the defending singles champion and singles runner-up last year’s edition of the tournament in Elza Tomase and Rebeka Mertena.

UT has put at least one student-athlete in the last two ITA National Fall Championships as Kaitlin Staines and Tenika McGiffin qualified for the event in 2019 after a runner-up finish at the All-American Championships. The event was canceled in the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis.

Head coach Alison Ojeda, in her seventh year at the helm of the program, keeps her squad at home to round out the month of October, hosting the Tennessee Fall Invitational October 28-30.

“As excited as I am to see our girls compete later this month, I am more excited to see how we continue to develop over the course of the next three weeks,” Ojeda said. “As a group, I really feel excitement around our entire program. We’ve added three new student-athletes to the roster and each of them bring a lot of personality to the team.”

The fall slate kicks off later this month at the Wolfpack Invitational/Ranked Spotlight +1 in Cary, N.C., hosted by NC State. A season ago, now student coach, McGiffin claimed victory at the event in singles, capturing the B draw crown.

Yet with competition on the horizon, the Lady Vols are hard at work, dialing in on the little details and growing in their abilities.

“Jarryd Chaplin is really focusing in on individual skill work while I focus on our team’s mental toughness and ability to compete at a high level when things get hard,” Ojeda continued. “We have a new strength coach in Ryan Metzger who is doing an outstanding job teaching the fundamentals of both lifting and running and she brings a jolt of energy to workouts every day.”

Another highlight on the calendar this fall is the ITA All-American Championship, also played in Cary, N.C. The event runs from October 3-9 and the draws for…