A veteran from Athens, Greece, Rentouli finds herself at 125th in Tuesday’s national singles rankings.
Rentouli, Antonakis In ITA Preseason Rankings For Women’s Tennis
September 11, 2018 | Women's Tennis
by Emily Pschigoda, Student Assistant/Communications
STARKVILLE, Miss. – With the fall season inching closer, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association announced its preseason rankings on Tuesday, with senior Anastasia Rentouli and newcomer Emma Antonakis in the mix.
A veteran from Athens, Greece, Rentouli finds herself at 125th in Tuesday's national singles rankings. A fierce competitor for the Bulldogs, Rentouli enters her senior campaign ranked for the third time in her career. In 2016, she found herself at 36th, her highest ranking thus far.
Rentouli's consistency in 2018 helped lead MSU to a school-record fourth consecutive bid to the NCAA Championship field. She was a Second Team All-SEC honoree as well last spring - the first such award of her career - after compiling team-leading 22-7 overall and 14-4 dual match (7-2 SEC) singles records, mainly competing at the No. 4 position.
MSU won a program-record five-straight SEC contests at one point during the season and Rentouli was a huge part of the reason. She claimed five-consecutive, three-set, match-clinching wins in all five of those victories, with three of the wins coming after being a set down. To start the streak, the Athens, Greece, native clinched MSU's win against No. 2-ranked and eventual SEC Champion/NCAA finalist Vanderbilt, which is the highest ranked win in both MSU men's and women's tennis history.
Rentouli, who also swept both ITA Southern Region sportsmanship laurels (the Arthur Ashe Leadership & Cissy Leary Sportsmanship Awards) last spring as well as earning Google Cloud Academic All-District honors, enters her final year in the Maroon and White leading the Bulldogs with a 63-26 career singles ledger.
Joining Rentouli in Tuesday's rankings is freshman Emma Antonakis, also of Athens, Greece. The highly-touted rookie ranks 10th in the ITA's newcomer rankings. Antonakis comes to Starkville as the top-ranked player in all of Greece for the past two years, where she was a member of the 2018 Greek Federation Cup team.
In 2017, she was the junior and women's national singles champion as well as the junior doubles champion. She has won four ITF junior singles crowns and one doubles title in Greece, Cyprus and Malta. She climbed to as high as No. 195 in the ITF world junior rankings and is ranked 1212th in the ITF world women's singles rankings.
MSU enters the fall following a 16-11 mark in 2018. The year featured the highest-ranked victory in program history, an upset of two straight top 15 teams for the first time ever, and the fourth-most wins in the program's 43-year existence. The Bulldogs also went on to make an appearance in the second round of the NCAA Championship in Chapel Hill, N.C.
The ITA also announced selections for the 2018 Riviera/ITA All-American Championships, which will be held in Los Angeles in in October. Three Bulldogs are featured in the event, highlighted by Rentouli and Antonakis in prequalifying singles. Sophomore Magda Adaloglou is an alternate to the singles draw while she and Antonakis are entered in the qualifying round of doubles.
Up Next For MSU …
Rentouli, Antonakis and the MSU squad kick off the fall slate in Greenville, S.C., at the Debbie Southern Fall Classic September 21-23.
STARKVILLE, Miss. – With the fall season inching closer, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association announced its preseason rankings on Tuesday, with senior Anastasia Rentouli and newcomer Emma Antonakis in the mix.
A veteran from Athens, Greece, Rentouli finds herself at 125th in Tuesday's national singles rankings. A fierce competitor for the Bulldogs, Rentouli enters her senior campaign ranked for the third time in her career. In 2016, she found herself at 36th, her highest ranking thus far.
Rentouli's consistency in 2018 helped lead MSU to a school-record fourth consecutive bid to the NCAA Championship field. She was a Second Team All-SEC honoree as well last spring - the first such award of her career - after compiling team-leading 22-7 overall and 14-4 dual match (7-2 SEC) singles records, mainly competing at the No. 4 position.
MSU won a program-record five-straight SEC contests at one point during the season and Rentouli was a huge part of the reason. She claimed five-consecutive, three-set, match-clinching wins in all five of those victories, with three of the wins coming after being a set down. To start the streak, the Athens, Greece, native clinched MSU's win against No. 2-ranked and eventual SEC Champion/NCAA finalist Vanderbilt, which is the highest ranked win in both MSU men's and women's tennis history.
Rentouli, who also swept both ITA Southern Region sportsmanship laurels (the Arthur Ashe Leadership & Cissy Leary Sportsmanship Awards) last spring as well as earning Google Cloud Academic All-District honors, enters her final year in the Maroon and White leading the Bulldogs with a 63-26 career singles ledger.
Joining Rentouli in Tuesday's rankings is freshman Emma Antonakis, also of Athens, Greece. The highly-touted rookie ranks 10th in the ITA's newcomer rankings. Antonakis comes to Starkville as the top-ranked player in all of Greece for the past two years, where she was a member of the 2018 Greek Federation Cup team.
In 2017, she was the junior and women's national singles champion as well as the junior doubles champion. She has won four ITF junior singles crowns and one doubles title in Greece, Cyprus and Malta. She climbed to as high as No. 195 in the ITF world junior rankings and is ranked 1212th in the ITF world women's singles rankings.
MSU enters the fall following a 16-11 mark in 2018. The year featured the highest-ranked victory in program history, an upset of two straight top 15 teams for the first time ever, and the fourth-most wins in the program's 43-year existence. The Bulldogs also went on to make an appearance in the second round of the NCAA Championship in Chapel Hill, N.C.
The ITA also announced selections for the 2018 Riviera/ITA All-American Championships, which will be held in Los Angeles in in October. Three Bulldogs are featured in the event, highlighted by Rentouli and Antonakis in prequalifying singles. Sophomore Magda Adaloglou is an alternate to the singles draw while she and Antonakis are entered in the qualifying round of doubles.
Up Next For MSU …
Rentouli, Antonakis and the MSU squad kick off the fall slate in Greenville, S.C., at the Debbie Southern Fall Classic September 21-23.
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