Houston tennis finishes promising fall season

With the Individual Championships now over, Houston tennis is officially done with the fall season, and it has a long break to prepare for the spring.

Second-year head coach Katarina Adamovic showed much improvement from last year, as Houston tennis remained competitive in several tough tournaments all around Texas.

 The Cougars could be a team to watch in the spring, as they finished near the top of several events throughout the fall slate.

Corpus Christi Invite

Houston tennis began the fall at the Jake Frederick Memorial Islander Open, in Corpus Christi, Texas, from Sept. 12-14.

The Cougars shined in the first matches of the season as they went on to take over the event in both singles and doubles play.

Houston won 14 of its 15 singles matches, with the only loss coming from when junior Iva Sepa was defeated 6-3 by TAMU Corpus Christi’s sophomore Kseniya Ramanouskaya.

UH also won five of the six doubles matches, which was an ideal start to the 2025 season.

Rice Invite

The Cougars then competed at the Rice Invite from Sept. 19-21, at the George R. Brown Tennis Center, located in Houston, Texas.

Seniors Sophie Schouten and Chems Doha Zeghlouli were the highlights of the weekend, as they won three doubles matches, along with a pair of singles victories.

On Friday, Houston won five of its six singles matches, and the Cougars went a perfect four-for-four in doubles play.

While the Cougars’ success started early, it did not maintain throughout the next two days.

Houston lost two of the final three doubles matches, as well as dropping six of the last eight singles matches.

Big 12 Individual Championships

The Cougars bounced back from a tough weekend at the Rice Invite, with a performance where they picked up 23 wins across the four-day event at the Big 12 Individual Championships, from Sept. 25-28, in Waco, Texas.

Schouten was the Cougars’ top performer as she earned the Big 12 Singles Red Bracket Championship by winning all four of her singles matches.

Houston won 23 of its 33 total matches, finishing the weekend with the most wins of any other team.

ITA Regional Championships

Houston’s next event was at the ITA Regional Championships, from Oct. 9-12 at Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center, in Houston, Texas.

For the first time in program history, Houston’s entire roster qualified for the event, showing the team’s improvement this season.

Shouten and Zeghlouli once again were the headline of the weekend, reaching the quarter-finals in the doubles bracket before being defeated by Baylor’s junior Zuzanna Kubacha and senior Na Dong.

Houston started the event strong, collecting 10 of its 14 total wins through the first two days.

However, as the competition got more stiff, the Cougars only managed four wins in the final two days of the event.

ITA Sectional Championships

Due to Shouten and Zeghlouli’s success throughout the fall, the duo earned a trip to play in the ITA Sectional Championships, from Nov. 6-9, in College Station, Texas.

The tournament didn’t last long for Houston as it lost in the first round 6-3 to Texas Tech’s seniors Yekaterina Dmitrichenko and Hailey Murphy.

Next Up

Houston will now have a long break to rest and prepare for a grueling spring season.

The spring season schedule was released Tuesday afternoon, with its home schedule beginning with a double-header against UTRGV and New Mexico on Feb. 7 at the Barbara Wallace Winston Tennnis Facility.