Women’s Tennis Releases Strong 2024 Schedule – Columbia University Athletics

NEW YORK – Columbia women’s tennis head coach Ilene Weintraub announced the 2024 schedule on Saturday. The schedule includes 11 home matches with four of those being Ivy League contests.
 
The Lions will face a challenging schedule this season featuring matches against four teams that competed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament – Michigan, Notre Dame, Princeton, Charlotte. Michigan (No. 6) and Notre Dame (No. 28) finished inside the top 30 of the final ITA rankings last season. Eight other teams on the schedule finished inside the top 75 at the end of the season – Syracuse, Kentucky, Charlotte, Princeton, Rice, Tulsa, Colorado State and Penn State.
 
“Our 2024 team is talented and deep, and the schedule was created to reflect the team’s potential,” Weintraub said. With eight opportunities against opponents that finished between 40-75 last season and two top 30 matches, this might be the most exciting schedule in program history.”
 
Columbia opens the 2024 schedule with a doubleheader against Marist on Friday, January 19 at the Philip and Cheryl Milstein Family Tennis Center. The team will then make the trip to South Bend, Indiana to play Notre Dame on January 21.
 
The Lions return home for four straight matches starting January 27 against Penn State. Columbia will then host Kentucky on February 2 before capping off the weekend with a doubleheader against Syracuse and Wagner on February 4.
 
Columbia will return to the ECAC Championships starting February 9 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The tournament wraps up on February 11. The team will then have a short break before traveling to Michigan to play at Michigan on February 23 and Michigan State on February 25.
 
The team returns home one more time to host Hofstra March 2 before hitting the road before the start of Ivy League play. The Lions will play at Charlotte on March 8 and then play Colorado State in Charlotte on March 9. Columbia then heads to Texas to meet Rice on March 15. The Lions cap off the road trip with a match against Tulsa in Houston on March 17.
 
Columbia opens the Ivy League schedule at home March 30 against Cornell. The Lions will also host Penn (April 7), Yale (April 20) and Brown (April 21) as part of the Ivy League home slate this season.
 
The Lions hit the road for the first time during conference action to meet the defending Ivy League Champion Princeton Tigers on April 5. Columbia will also travel to Dartmouth (April 13) and Harvard (April 14) this season.
 
NEW FACES
Salma Farhat, Gayathri Krishnan and Natacha Schou joined the squad this fall. Farhat comes to Columbia from Laurel Springs High School in Bellevue, Washington. Schou comes from Copenhagen, Denmark. Schou played in the Junior Championships at the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open in 2022. Schou also represented Denmark at the Billie Jean King Cup in Turkey in April 2023. Krishnan joins the team from Cupertino, California where she was a four-year singles player and helped the team win the 2023 NorCal Championship.
 
Santiago Lobelo joined the Columbia University women’s tennis staff as an assistant coach in October 2023. Lobelo comes to Columbia after most recently working as a coach at SPORTIME Randall’s Island/the John McEnroe Tennis Academy here in New York City as a coach.
 
Prior to his role as a coach at SPORTIME/JMTA, Lobelo served two seasons as the men’s assistant coach at East Tennessee State University. He helped the team win two regular season and championship conference titles and led the team to two NCAA appearances. Before the stint at ETSU, Lobelo was a women’s assistant coach at the University of Houston, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Arizona. Lobelo also served as a travel coach and hitting partner to junior, collegiate, and professional players at Evert Tennis Academy and the Rick Macci Tennis Academy.
 
FALL SEASON
Columbia hosted Wagner, Corner, VCU and LIU as part of the Columbia Invitational to start the fall. The Lions dominated by winning 30 of 36 total singles and doubles matches over three days.
 
Sophia Strugnell led the team at the Cissie Leary Invite as she went 4-1 overall in her matches. Anna Zhang, Sophia Wang and Rachele Rimondini each finished with a 3-2 overall mark.
 
Julia Haynes led the Lions in singles as she went 3-0 on the weekend at the Notre Dame Invite. First-year Salma Farhat also impressed as she finished the weekend 2-1 in singles. The duo of Haynes and Strugnell finished 2-0 in doubles action.
 
Wang earned four wins in the ITA Northeast Regional to advance to the ITA Super Regionals. First-year Salma Farhat also earned a spot in the Super Regionals as she advanced to the singles Round of 16 at the ITA Northeast Super Regional.
 
Columbia continued a successful fall schedule at the Fordham Invite as Fatima Keita, Gayathri Krishnan, Rimondini, Strugnell, Clarine Lerby and Carolyn Brodsky each picked up two singles wins. On the doubles side, first-year Natacha Schou saw her first action as a Lion as she paired up with Clarine Lerby to earn two doubles wins. The duos of Keita/Rimondini and Krishnan/Strugnell also posted two doubles victories for the weekend.
 
The squad capped off the fall slate with an impressive showing at the Harvard Invitational. Julia Haynes battled to take a three-set, 4-6, 6-3, 10-4 win over Harvard’s No. 109 Charlotte Owensby. The first-year Krishnan then earned a 6-4, 6-3 win over Boston College’s No. 107 Sophia Edwards.
 
LOOKING BACK
Columbia finished the 2023 season with an 11-8 record as the squash finished third in the Ivy League standings with a 5-2 mark in conference action. The Lions earned an impressive late-season victory over No. 72 Harvard to avenge a loss to the Crimson earlier in the season.
 
Four Lions garnered All-Ivy recognition last season with Anna Zhang being named First Team in singles. Zhang was also named Second Team in doubles along with Sophia Wang. Winta Tewolde earned Second Team recognition in singles. Michelle Xu was named an Academic All-Ivy recipient.
 
FOLLOWING THE LIONS
Stay up to date on all things Columbia Women’s Tennis by following the Lions on Twitter (@CULionsWTEN), Instagram (@culionswten) and on Facebook (@ColumbiaAthletics).