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The bracket for the 2026 NCAA Women’s Championship dropped yesterday afternoon and all eyes will be on the University of Georgia Bulldogs. Not only are they the No. 1 seeds, the Final Four and national title match will be held May 14–17 at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Georgia. The same courts where the Bulldogs practice every day at the same facility where they’ve built one of the most dominant programs in the sport. The NCAA, perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, has handed the defending champions a postseason setup that is about as close to a home playoff as college athletics allows.
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Georgia earned the No. 1 overall seed, which was no surprise. They won the national championship last May and have carried that standard into 2026 by winning the ITA National Team Indoor title. The Bulldogs open against Alabama State on Friday, with the path to a repeat running entirely through Athens if they can get there. Playing a major championship on your own courts doesn’t guarantee anything, but it removes a layer of disadvantage that every other contender has to absorb. It’s definitely an intangible not many talk about but would certainly want to have. Still, they come with a bit of a question mark holding an 18-5 record and a recent 4-1 loss to No. 15 LSU in the SEC tournament.
They also might want to let their racquets do the talking to pivot from their White House visit to celebrate their 2025 title. President Donald Trump hosted the UGA women’s tennis team at the White House by taking center stage in a photo where he and several men stood in front of most of the NCAA title-winning athletes. The men in the foreground were UGA’s Deputy Athletic Director, Athletic Director Josh Brooks, head coach Drake Bernstein, and two assistant coaches — with most of the players pushed to the back two rows. How nobody could see how that looked and fix it is beyond me, but unfortunately I’m not surprised.
If there’s a program positioned to knock Georgia off, it’s Auburn. The Tigers enter the tournament as the No. 2 overall seed and ranked No. 1 in the ITA national team rankings — a distinction they earned the hard way. Auburn won the SEC regular-season title for the first time in program history, then backed it up by winning the SEC Tournament Championship, also a first. They did it against the deepest women’s tennis conference in the country, finishing 32-3 overall with 12 wins over top-25 opponents.
The engine of Auburn’s season has been senior DJ Bennett, who has been the best player in college tennis at various points this year and at one point held the No. 1 ITA singles ranking. She and doubles partner Ava Esposito are also the No. 2-ranked doubles team in the country. Bennett has collected 11 ranked singles wins this spring, including victories over top-10 opponents. When she’s right, she belongs in any conversation about the best player in the field.
Texas A&M at No. 4 is quietly dangerous. Lucciana Perez went 23-0 this season in dual matches and was named SEC Player of the Year — an unbeaten record in one of the best conferences in the country is not small. The Aggies open against Quinnipiac at home in College Station, which is the kind of favorable first-round draw that lets a team build momentum without burning anything in the tank. If Perez keeps serving and striking the way she has all spring, she can take a set from anyone in the draw.
North Carolina at No. 5 is the program that never leaves the conversation, regardless of the year. The Tar Heels are 24-3, they have Reese Brantmeier, the reigning NCAA singles national champion currently ranked No. 2 in the country and head coach Brian Kalbas who just recorded his 800th career win to become the winningest active coach in NCAA tennis. UNC lost a tight ACC Tournament semifinal to NC State, which is the only blemish that matters, and a team that plays that many matches against top competition and loses three times all year is not a program with real flaws. They have the talent to reach Athens. Ohio State as the No. 3 seed rounds out the contenders — the Buckeyes have been as consistent as any program not playing in the SEC all season.
Before we close, we’d be doing this space a disservice if we didn’t say something about what happened in Fayetteville last Friday. Arkansas announced it is discontinuing both its men’s and women’s tennis programs at the conclusion of this spring season. The first sports cut by the Razorbacks in 33 years. The first major program to cut tennis in the NIL and post-House settlement era. And it wasn’t close to a close call as athletic director Hunter Yurachek made clear that the department had concluded it simply couldn’t allocate the resources necessary to compete in the SEC at the level the programs deserved.
Arkansas will drop to 17 sponsored sports, one above the FBS minimum. That number alone tells you something. This isn’t a small school trimming overhead, but this is a program with a nine-figure athletic budget deciding that tennis doesn’t fit inside it anymore. The money that funded those courts is going somewhere else, and everyone in college athletics knows where: football and basketball, the sports that generate the revenue that funds everything else, especially now that revenue sharing with athletes is a real line item on the budget.
Arkansas’s move drew a pointed response from Patrick McEnroe, who dedicated his SiriusXM show to the topic over the weekend: “This is Arkansas — Southeastern Conference, big-time college sports, big-time money, big-time brand, and tennis, just like that, is gone.” He’s right that it’s a signal worth taking seriously. The post-House settlement landscape is going to reshape which sports survive at major programs, and tennis (relatively low-revenue, scholarship-heavy when you count both men’s and women’s) fits the profile of a sport that’s going to keep facing these decisions.
The women’s program doesn’t get a curtain call in Athens and will exit the sport the same week the sport celebrates its best teams. The players who remain on scholarship have the option to transfer immediately and compete elsewhere next year. That’s the right thing to do, but it still doesn’t make any of it less abrupt.
Now, on to links!
This Week in Women’s Tennis
The Mutua Madrid Open continues and the quarterfinals are set:
(1) Aryna Sabalenka vs. (30) Hailey Baptiste
(24) Leylah Fernandez vs. (9) Mirra Andreeva
(26) Marta Kostyuk vs. (13) Linda Noskova
Karolina Pliskova vs. (LL) Anastasia Potapova
WTA CEO Portia Archer has resigned less than two years into her tenure with the organization. The tour will announce a transition plan sometime next month. Could it be related to the following news?
Congratulations to Ons Jabeur on the birth of her first child, a son named Elyan:
This week 50 years ago, Evonne Goolagong was the No. 1 player in the world, but it took decades for that to become known.
The NCAA formally approved the Division I Singles and Doubles Championships to be held in the Fall.
Tennis can be quite a lonely sport and some players opened up about the locker room and the rise of online hate from bettors.
Cristina Bucsa has had a career-best year and finds herself in Madrid as Spain’s No. 1 player.
Though sports technology is rapidly improving, match retirements are on the rise.
Apparently, Camila Giorgi will be coming back to the tour next year following maternity leave.
Victoria Mboko is hoping to kickstart a productive clay court campaign following wisdom teeth surgery, while Oksana Selekhmeteva is eager to capitalize on some recent form.
Alycia Parks has channeled clay court advice from Serena Williams, who she’s been practicing with some this year.
Tweet of the Week
The tennis to running pipeline was strong this week:
Five at The IX: Madrid Week 1
Q. It’s been a long time since you played a match on clay as well. I just wonder, how was it coming back on this surface, and how difficult was it to adjust?
VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah, I felt like in the last game I started to move better on the clay. But then it was the last game (laughing).
All these things take adjustments. I started my practice on clay a couple weeks after Miami. I haven’t really played on clay in years. But I enjoy the clay, it’s fun. I played against a very inspired opponent today.
Q. I know you don’t like to look too far forward, but would you like to play at Roland Garros? Now that you’re back on the clay, is that something you’re thinking about?
VENUS WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, to get my feet dirty, this was a great start. I’m not able to play Rome, I have other commitments, unfortunately, so I’m really super sad about that, actually. My husband is Italian, so we feel sad that we can’t be there. So we would love to keep it going on the clay.
Q. Well played today. Just curious, given all your success on clay, at this point does it feel like coming, playing your first tournament on the surface, does it feel natural, does it feel like a natural surface for you?
ARYNA SABALENKA: I feel like taking Madrid in the first tournament on the clay is not really that natural and not that easy. Because of the altitude and the conditions here it’s a bit tricky. I’m still finding my rhythm and, yeah, I’m just hoping with every game I play I’ll play better and I’ll find my rhythm and my tennis on clay.
Q. Two solid matches here. Curious, you won 25 out of 26 matches this season, if I’m not mistaken. The only loss was the Australian Open final, but still, three titles, one major final. I was wondering, if someone told you at the beginning of the season this is going to be your season until the 25th of April, would you have signed for it?
ARYNA SABALENKA: I mean, I’ll be like, I mean, who knows, let’s just go and take it one step at a time, and hopefully we’ll get to this point. But, I mean, probably I wouldn’t really believe it because the statistic sounds really crazy.
But at the same time with the scheduling and with my body, we’re taking some extra time to be more ready for every tournament, to show up with the best tennis I can. So probably I would believe, but still sounds crazy (laughing).
Q. Watching a lot of the top players these days, in my opinion you’re really strong in the corners, when you’re on the run, at full stretch. How important is that in the game right now to be stronger and be able to hurt people from all parts of the court?
ARYNA SABALENKA: Yeah, I think it’s really important to put pressure not only from your strike zone, but also on the goal. Just like putting extra pressure that, even if I’ll be moving, even if I’ll be defending, I’ll still be able to stay in the point and also damage you. So I think it’s, yeah, it’s really important.
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Mondays: Soccer
By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer
Tuesdays: Tennis
By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer
Wednesdays: Basketball
By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports
Thursdays: Golf
By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports
Fridays: Hockey
By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden
Saturdays: Gymnastics
By: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer