Long Beach State women’s tennis coach Jenny Hilt-Costello announced on Tuesday that the Beach has signed on four incoming freshmen for LBSU’s 2017 signing class from all over the world.
Carlota Casasampere (Spain), Lalita Devarakonda (India), Georgia Gulin (Brazil) and Sadaf Sadeghvaziri (Iran) look to replace the highest ranked senior class in LBSU women’s tennis program history.
“We are extremely excited to welcome Carlota, Lalita, Georgia and Sadaf to our Beach Tennis family,” Hilt-Costello said of the incoming signing class. “They are a very talented group and will bring some new energy and excitement to our program. There are some big shoes to fill, but I know they are more than capable.”
Casaasampere was ranked in the Top 200 in Spain’s women’s ranking at the age of 15, after returning from a knee injury she had several wins in the Top 100 competitions and roughly 40 tournament wins in her career.
Devarakonda was the 2013 Player of the Year at the All India CBSE Nationals, in 2016 she made a pair of semifinal appearances at the U18 Nationals and she was ranked in the Top 10 in the All India Under-18 rankings.
Gulin has a career-best ITF ranking of 318, ranked No. 2 in Brazil’s U16, won the Brazilian Federation Cup, and received a certificate from the Minister of Sports for her athletic accomplishments in 2014.
Sadeghavaziri is currently ranked the No. 1 junior and No. 1 women’s player in the country, and has a career-best ITF ranking of 314. She won the singles draw of the 2nd Fajr Junior Tournament in February, and will be competing at the 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The international incoming freshman will be joining the returning players – Lena Pacholski (junior), Maren Helgo (freshman) and Natalia Munoz (freshman) for the 2017-18 Beach Tennis season.