Murray State women’s tennis was given a recruiting class rank of 23 recently by the Tennis Recruiting Network for NCAA mid-major teams.
Coach Jorge Caetano’s 2017-18 class of Aarja Chakraborty of Gautam Budh Nagar, India, and Nastya Sharapova of Astana, Kazakhstan have turned in solid junior careers as they get set to join the Racers in August as freshmen. Both are currently sporting International Tennis Federation Junior World Rankings. Sharapova has a high ranking of 703 and Chakraborty’s was 775.
Chakraborty has a career high ITF Juniors rank of 775. She had a three-set win over Olivia Elliot of Great Britain (260) and in 2014 she was selected represent India in the Road to Wimbledon Tournament held at the All England Club.
Sharapova has several wins against higher ranked opponents, including victories over Knesia Domnina of Russia (ranked 276) and Yasmina Karimjanova of Uzbekistan (188).
“I am very excited for our team and program to be recognized with a top-25 ranking,” said Caetano, who has now signed three ITF ranked players in the last two years, the other being sophomore Claire Chang. “We’re looking forward to getting Chakraborty and Sharapova here on campus. The fall season will be a good time for us to test our team and see where we’re at heading into 2018.”
Claire Chang, from Taiwan, had a career high ITF World junior ranking of 618 prior to winning 12 singles matches as a freshman at Murray State. Chang teamed with Alina Schibol for 13 doubles victories and was named All-Ohio Valley Conference Second Team.
The Racers get the fall portion of the 2016-17 season going (Sept. 8-9) at the Austin Peay Invitational.
The Tennis Recruiting Network compiles its Top-25 from the American, Atlantic 10, Atlantic Sun, Big East, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Conference USA, Horizon, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, MEAC, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwest, Summit, Sun Belt, West Cast, and Western Athletic conferences, as well as all programs outside of NCAA Division I.
TennisRecruiting.net 2017 Mid-Major Recruiting Top-25
1. Central Florida
2. Pepperdine
3. Loyola Marymount
4. Rice
5. Cincinnati
6. St. Mary’s (CA)
7. Florida International
8. New Mexico
9. CSU Fullerton
10. Boston University
11. Long Beach State
12. Miami (OH)
13. Florida Atlantic
14. Denver
15. Emory
16. James Madison
17. Army
18. Memphis
19. North Texas
20. Davidson
21. Fresno State
22. Tulane
23. Murray State
24. Richmond
25. Furman
Dave Winder
Murray State Athletics – Assistant AD – Media Relations