STEPHENVILLE, Texas – Tarleton hasn't slowed down from their WAC regular season title campaign last year, and new this year, the Texans officially have one of the top doubles pairings in the entire country.
For the first time in program history, the Texans have earned a spot on the official Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Division I Women's Team, Singles, and Doubles
National Rankings.
Martha Makantasi and
Elif Albayrak were slotted at No. 74 in the nationwide top-80 doubles rankings, which covers every double pairing from every single NCAA Division I program.
"This is the first time any player has been ranked in D1 collegiate tennis at Tarleton, so this is a huge deal," head coach
Elianne Douglas-Miron said. "To be ranked is an impressive feat that really shows how hard we have been working and how much effort we have been putting in our doubles game in the last few years. We continue to work hard to earn that doubles point every time we get on the court."
Weekly, the ITA announces the top teams, singles players and doubles teams. These rankings are recognized like how college football treats the CFP and how college basketball treats the AP polls.
Of the 80 pairs the ITA ranked as the top in the country, Tarleton owns one of the 23 coming from a non-Power Five Conference program. The Texans are also the only WAC team represented.
Albayrak, a freshman, just returned from injury and made her dual match debut of the spring this past Friday against Tyler Junior College.
In the fall, Albayrak and Makantasi posted several significant victories together, beginning with a Round of 64 win at the ITA Texas Regional Championship against Houston's Blanca Cortijo Parreno and Azul Pedemonti 8-6. They also beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Sofia Pinto and Kateryna Rublevska 6-4 at the UIW Cardinal Classic, plus Texas Tech's top pair of Avelina Sayfetdinova and Yekaterina Dmitrichenko 6-1 at the TCU Invitational.
Makantasi, Albayrak and the rest of the Texans will return to action at home on Saturday against Louisiana Tech at 1 p.m. CT.
