UW Women’s tennis’ Erika Matsuda advances to Round of 32 in NCAA Individual Championships
By Charles Hamaker
Orlando, FL - Match week for the Washington Husky women’s tennis team in the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships began with a bang, as senior Erika Matsuda kicked things off by punching her ticket to the Round of 32. Matsuda (Ranked 96th) bested Syracuse senior Serafima Shastova (Ranked 80th) in two sets in the Round of 64 contest, Erika’s NCAA Singles debut, sending her to the Round of 32 to begin a week for Washington that features five Huskies representing the program.
Sights of Erika Matsuda during the NCAA Tournament first round match between the visiting Stetson Hatters and Washington Husky women’s tennis team on Friday, May 2nd, 2025 at the Bill Quillian Tennis Stadium. (Photos by Sam Hotaling for Circling Seattle Sports)
Things began favorably for Matsuda, who took the first set of this matchup by a calm final margin of 6-2. Syracuse’s Shastova fought back a bit in the second set, taking a lead of 4-2 before Erika fought back to force a tie. Matsuda went on to win in a tie break by a final of 7-6(3), punching her ticket to the NCAA Singles Round of 32.
Winning and advancing means that Erika will matchup up against Carolina Gomez Alonso from the university of Arkansas, who completed a three-set comeback against Vivian Yang from the university of Virginia. The two will face off tomorrow, November 19th with more details to come. It’ll be a battle of the upsets, with Matsuda defeating someone 16 spots higher than her and Gomez getting upset honors from the official ITA Tennis twitter account.
Erika Matsuda is the eleventh Husky to compete in singles and doubles in the same year at the NCAA Championships, and the first since Stacey Fung did so for Washington back in 2019. Matsuda doing so represents the 13th time overall it’s happened. Matsuda will compete in doubles play, with Carina Syrtveit, in the Doubles Round of 32 on Wednesday, November 19th with a time still to be determined.
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