MANHATTAN - The K-State women’s tennis team will begin its fall schedule this weekend in Oxford, Mississippi at the Ole Miss Fall Classic. The tournament will be a flighted event, with three flights of singles and possibly two flights of doubles play. The Wildcats have slated senior Maria Rosenberg and junior Jessica Simosa into the first singles flight, freshmen Olga Klimova and Tamar Kvaratskhelia into the second singles flight and senior Judith Diaz and junior Aveen Alkhatib are in the third singles flight. Rosenberg enters this weekend’s matches ranked No. 105 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) preseason rankings.
 
“First and foremost, we want to compete well this weekend, which is no different than any other tournament,” said head coach Steve Bietau, who is entering his 21st season at the helm of Wildcat tennis.  “No one in the nation has worked harder for their ranking than Maria has. She deserves any recognition and accolades that come her way. Her work ethic and general approach to improving and learning are things that have helped her excel and have been a benefit to our team.”

The team has three newcomers, who will be in the mix this fall: Klimova, Kvaratskhelia and Tereza Prochazchova. Prochazkova is nursing an injury and will make her debut later this fall. Bietau feels this will be a valuable weekend for his newcomers. “With the two freshmen this weekend, we are looking for them to repeat what we have been doing in practice. Like most new players, there will be a time when they are able to replicate what we have been working on and other times when they won’t.”

The remainder of the fall schedule for the Wildcats includes the Riviera All-American in Los Angeles, California on Oct. 2-10, the Hossier Classic in Bloomington, Indiana on Oct. 8-10, the the ITA Regionals in Tulsa, Oklahoma on October 20-24, the ITA National Indoors in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Nov. 4 and the Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, Arizona on Nov. 5. Rosenberg and Simosa will represent the Wildcats at the Riviera All-American. Each will play in the pre-qualifying round as singles and as doubles partners.

“We like to play a difficult schedule in the fall to get a challenge from talented opponents,” remarked Bietau about the fall slate. “The results in the fall are meaningful for each individual player, but have no effect on our overall team record. We want each player to perform well, but the team results in the spring are more important to me.”

Participating teams at this weekend’s Ole Miss Fall Classic include Mississippi, Southern Mississippi, Tennessee Tech, Louisiana-Monroe, Centenary and Georgia. Some of the top players to watch this weekend include Ilona Somers and Mimi Renaudin of Ole Miss and Shadisha Robinson and Natalie Frazier of Georgia.