AUBURN, Ala. \u2013 Top-ranked Auburn women\u2019s tennis will play host to the NCAA Auburn Regional on Friday and Saturday at the Yarbrough Tennis Center in Auburn, Alabama. The regional will open with Miami (FL) and North Florida at 10 a.m. CT, followed by Auburn and Bryant at 1 p.m. CT Friday in the round of 64. The winners will face off in the round of 32 at 1 p.m. CT on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a top eight host is what you want, and it\u2019s a goal that we had at the start of the year,\u201d Auburn head coach Jordan Szabo<\/a> said. \u201cWhat an honor for the team and the girls. They\u2019ve been spectacular all season long, and I really feel like we\u2019re playing our best tennis later in the year. That\u2019s why we practice the way we practice and do all the things that we do, so we can peak when it matters, and we\u2019re improving.<\/p>\n \u201cBryant and North Florida won their conferences, so they\u2019re champions just like us. I\u2019m sure they\u2019re excited to come here and get an opportunity to play. Miami\u2019s a blue-blood type program and had a run of making the Sweet 16 or better for many years in a row at some point. Paige (Yaroshuk-Tews) is a legendary coach, and she\u2019ll have a team fired up and ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n The Tigers were chosen as the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Championship on Monday, the highest seed in program history. Auburn holds a 32-3 overall record and won a share of the SEC regular-season championship with a 13-2 mark in conference matches. The Tigers enter regionals after winning the program\u2019s first SEC Tournament title with victories over No. 12 Florida, No. 2 Texas A&M and No. 15 LSU.<\/p>\n Auburn senior DJ Bennett<\/a> has set the tone for the team lately, winning four straight singles matches and taking six of her last seven doubles matches with partner Ava Esposito<\/a>. She was named SEC Championship MVP for her wins on the top doubles court and top singles court during the tournament.<\/p>\n Auburn will face Bryant, the regional\u2019s No. 4 seed, in the round of 64 on Friday. The Bulldogs earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament after winning the Ohio Valley Conference Championship. Bryant is 17-7 overall this season and has won each of its last five matches.<\/p>\n Miami is the No. 2 seed in the Auburn Regional and is currently ranked No. 29 in the ITA National Team Rankings. The Hurricanes are 14-7 overall and went 8-4 in the ACC this season. The team reached the quarterfinals of the ACC Championship. Miami returns to the NCAA Tournament after not receiving a bid in 2025 for the first time in 28 seasons.<\/p>\n North Florida earned the 3-seed in the regional with an undefeated 25-0 record this season. The Ospreys won the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament with wins over Bellarmine, North Alabama and FGCU. The conference title helped North Florida earn its 11th NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.<\/p>\n Attendance to each match during the NCAA Auburn Regional is free and additional fan information is available at AuburnTigers.com\/MatchDay. Live video and live scoring of each match throughout the regional will be available at AuburnTigers.com.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Auburn in the rankings (ITA)<\/p>\n Singles:<\/p>\n 16 \u2013 DJ Bennett<\/a><\/p>\n 31 \u2013 Ekaterina Khairutdinova<\/a><\/p>\n 55 \u2013 Angella Okutoyi<\/a><\/p>\n 58 \u2013 Ashton Bowers<\/a><\/p>\n 68 \u2013 Ava Esposito<\/a><\/p>\n Doubles:<\/p>\n 2 \u2013 Ava Esposito<\/a>\/DJ Bennett<\/a><\/p>\n 8 \u2013 Angella Okutoyi<\/a>\/Merna Refaat<\/a><\/p>\n 44 \u2013 Angella Okutoyi<\/a>\/Ava Esposito<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUBURN, Ala. \u2013 Top-ranked Auburn women\u2019s tennis will play host to the NCAA Auburn Regional on Friday and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-640940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}