By DJ Ramirez | Sports Editor
Tennis to host 2025 National Championship
Mark your calendars for Spring 2025 because the Bears are hosting a natty! The NCAA announced Wednesday that Baylor and the city of Waco will serve as the host for the 2025 NCAA Division I Championships for both men’s and women’s tennis. The event will mark a decade since the last time the national championship was held in Waco after Baylor hosted for the first time in 2015.
In a statement released by the athletic department Wednesday, women’s tennis head coach Joey Scrivano said it’s a special opportunity for Baylor to host a national championship again.
“It’s such a special experience for the student-athletes and the community,” Scrivano said. “In 2015, there was a great sense of pride to host such a prestigious event. It was a labor of love for so many people. That was a key moment where we got to see building a men’s and women’s program from the bottom to the pinnacle of hosting, and so many people were a part of it. And, not just hosting, but we had a men’s and women’s team that were both able to participate in making a run at a national title on their home court.”
The tournament includes the top eight teams from each side who will compete in a single elimination format. The event will also include the NCAA Singles and Doubles championships.
The 2015 championship in Waco saw Virginia win the men’s team title while Vanderbilt took home the women’s team title. Baylor’s only national championship title came in 2004 on the men’s side, and the women have made it to the Final Four twice. In 2005, Baylor’s Zuzana Zemanova and Benedikt Dorsch won the singles titles and Benjamin Becker took home the singles title a year before.
Baylor’s Hurd Tennis Center and Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center are some of the premier tennis facilities in the nation and were ranked No. 1 by Tennis Magazine in the fall of 2015, after hosting the championship that year. Men’s tennis interim head coach Michael Woodson said the program is excited to strive for a title on its own home court.
“[The] Hurd Tennis Center and Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center are two of the premier facilities in collegiate athletics, and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to show them off on the biggest stage,” Woodson said. “It will be an honor for our student-athletes to compete on their home courts for the title they strive for in training day in and day out. We look forward to the opportunity to showcase the best that Division I collegiate tennis has to offer come Spring 2025.”
Women’s golf to host 2026 regional
The hosting honors for Baylor don’t end on the court. Baylor women’s golf was also selected by the NCAA to host a 2026 Division I women’s golf regional, which will be played at Ridgewood Country Club in Waco.
Women’s golf head coach Jay Goble said being chosen shows how much the team’s hard work has paid off.
“We’ve worked toward this for many years, and to see it come to fruition is gratifying for so many people,” Goble said in an athletics release Wednesday. “Ridgewood is the perfect course for a major women’s golf tournament, and we look forward to sharing this unique experience with teams from across the country.”
Tallahassee, Fla., Stanford, Calif., and Chapel Hill, N.C., were also chosen as regional sites for the 2026 tournament. The national championship will be held in Carlsbad, Calif. If the Bears are selected into the 2026 postseason field, they will compete in the Waco Regional regardless of seeding.
The tournament will begin with a practice round on May 10, 2026 and will be followed by three consecutive days of stroke play from May 11-13, 2026. The top six teams from each of the four regional sites will advance to the championship rounds in Carlsbad.
The Bears kicked off the 2020-21 season with back-to-back titles at the Schooner Classic and the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational. Baylor will next compete at the Cowgirl Classic on Oct. 22-23 in Stillwater, Okla.
