Friday, May 7
Charleston Southern at #9 UCF
3 p.m. | Orlando, Fla.
Live Stats | Live Stream

Charleston Southern begins their 2021 NCAA Women's Tennis Championships trek Friday afternoon against a national seed in No. 9 UCF down in Orlando, Fla. at the USTA National Campus.

Charleston Southern last made an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2015 where they fell to No. 7 Georgia by a 4-0 margin. Charleston Southern enters the NCAA Tournament one of the hottest teams winning six-straight matches and their fifth Big South Championship in program history. The Buccaneers make their second NCAA appearance and are just the third Big South institution to ever make the Big Dance and only active conference affiliate.

Charleston Southern went 1-0 in the regular season against the 2021 NCAA Tournament field with a 4-3 victory over Sun Belt champion Georgia Southern to open the spring slate.

Friday is the second all-time meeting between the Bucs and Knights with their previous affair coming in a 7-0 UCF win March 18, 1996 in Orlando. Charleston Southern would go on to finish 13-13 overall in the 1996 season and competed in the third-place match at the Big South Championships.

Zoe Cauthen, Madalina Man and Michelle Schmitz lead the Bucs with nine singles wins each with Cauthen winning her last seven singles matches highlighted by the 2021 Big South Championship-clinching three-set win over her Radford counterpart. Cauthen and her doubles partner Tiffany Pyritz are 10-5 on the season to lead the way including an 8-3 mark at the second flight.

A pair of Miami-based schools make up the rest of the Orlando region as Miami (Fla.) and FIU will play in the 2/3 matchup with the winner taking on Charleston Southern or UCF Saturday afternoon in the Round of 32. The winner of UCF's region will stay in Orlando at the USTA Campus to take on the winner of the No. 8 seed Baylor region in the Sweet 16.

UCF is making their seventh appearance in the NCAA Tournament and earned a national seed for the first time in program history. UCF grabbed their first win in the tournament in 2018 over FIU then advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2019 with wins over Alabama and No. 11 Florida state. Overall, the Knights are 3-6 in the NCAA Tournament and enter Friday's battle with an 18-4 record having won six-straight matches.

UCF has wins over nationally-ranked opponents in Florida (twice), Furman, Oklahoma State, Tulsa (twice) and Florida State and their only four losses on the season came to ranked foes Wake Forest, N.C. State, Texas and Oklahoma. The ninth-seeded Knights also hold a 14-0 record at the USTA Campus with three of their wins over ranked opponents.

Six players have 10-plus singles wins of the Knights this springled by Jaleesa Leslie's 13-4 mark. Valeriya Zeleva (No. 17 singles player) has a 12-2 record on the season playing 11 of her 14 matches at the top flight (9-2 record) and has rattled-off 12-straight wins with a 7-2 record against ranked opponents. Rebeka Stolmar (No. 37 singles player) enters the match with a 12-6 record playing all 18 of her matches in the top-half of the Knights' lineup.

A win Friday would be the first over a national seed and the Bucs' first in the NCAA Tournament in program history. Should they advance, the Bucs would play either FIU (#39) or Miami (#20) Saturday – either would be a first-time matchup. Five individual athletes rank among the latest ITA Top-125 Division I rankings in the UCF regional headlined by the No. 1 player Estela Perez-Somarriba (Miami).