HOUSTON – The Sam Houston women's tennis team will open its 47th season of competition at the Rice Invitational event at the George R. Brown Tennis Center Thursday through Sunday on the Owl campus.

Head coach Rob Hubbard welcomes seven returning letter winners and two newcomers for his ninth season at the helm of the Bearkat program. The event is a flighted tournament in both singles and doubles. The field includes Houston, UTSA, North Texas, SMU, Texas A&M and UTRGV.

"Our young ladies are itching to get the season going," Hubbard said. "They have been putting in lots of hard work in conditioning and practice in our preseason work."

Returning players include seniors Aaliyah Hohmann, Christine Jevicky, Jacqueline Schnabel, Nayuma Subba and Adithi Venkatakrishnan, junior Sara Sadadinovic and sophomore Ella Fitcher.

Freshman Anamaria Kurtsikashvili from Tbisili, Georgia, and sophomore transfer Isabella Garza from Spring, Texas will be seeing their first action as Bearkats.

"Going up against a challenging field like the one we will face in Houston will give us an excellent picture of where we are in our fall preparation for next spring's dual match season," Hubbard said. "The players have been really putting in the hard work this semester and are eager to test themselves. This is not a single elimination tournament so each of our players will get three days of quality competition."

This is first of five tournaments on the Kats' fall schedule. Sam Houston also play on the road in the ACU Invitational Sept. 26-28 in Abilene, the annual ITA Regional Championships hosted by TCU in Fort Worth Oct. 9-12 and the Texas State Bobcat Classic in San Marcos November 1-2.

Sam Houston will host the annual Bearkat Fall Invitational at the Chuck and Wanda Beckner Tennis Center on campus October 17-19.