Rice University Women's Tennis

Email Coach Schmidt Follow @Eschmidty77 C-USA Co-Coach of the Year 2012 C-USA Coach of the Year 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 2013 Wilson/ITA Texas Region Coach of the Year In 17 seasons at the helm of the Rice women's tennis program, Elizabeth Schmidt has built a tennis program that has reached unmatched heights at both the conference and national level. In 2024-25, Rice returned to NCAA action after posting a 17-7 record and finished the season ranked 36th, the Owls' highest ranking since the end of the 2016 season and Schmidt’s ninth top-40 finish. The Owls also hosted the inaugural American Conference Individual Championships at the George R. Brown Tennis Center and Divna Ratkovic won the first-ever conference singles championship. Schmidt has guided the Owls to 10 NCAA appearances, the most for Rice in any team sport over that span, and six conference titles. Rice’s five consecutive Conference USA titles from 2013-17, which matched the longest consecutive postseason titles for any school in any sport (Houston men's golf from 1997-2001) at that time. Her teams produced six Outstanding Singles and six Outstanding Doubles honorees at the C-USA Championships, while Schmidt earned four outright conference Coach of the Year nods and shared a fifth. One of the players who was responsible for a pair of both singles and doubles honors, in addition to a pair of C-USA Player of the Year honors (Natalie Beazant), was inducted into the C-USA Hall of Fame in 2020 and the Rice Hall of Fame in

Blair Shankle completed her first season with Rice in 2024-25, where she helped guide the Owls through one of the best seasons in recent history. Rice finished with a 17-7 record, which included a stretch where the Owls won 11 of its last 12 matches in the regular season. She helped lead Rice to six ranked victories in the stretch, including a top-50 win over Wichita State. Shankle's leadership helped bring Rice back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021. Shankle joined the Owls in June 2024 after spending the previous two seasons at SMU, first as an assistant coach and as an associate head coach in her second season. Shankle helped the Mustangs to back-to-back AAC championships and appearances in the NCAA Championships, with the team defeating Alabama this past season for the program’s first NCAA tournament victory since 2011. Shankle was named the ITA Texas Region Assistant Coach of the Year this season after helping graduate senior Taylor Johnson earn AAC Player of the Year honors. Prior to SMU, Shankle spent two years at Utah, where she helped lead the Utes in 2021-22 to a program-best 9-0 start, their first Pac 12 Conference Tournament win since 2017 and Utah's first win against USC in program history. Shankle was an integral part in building Utah’s ninth-ranked recruiting class in 2022, the program’s first-ever top-10 recruiting class, and was named the ITA Mountain Region Assistant Coach of the Year that same season. Shankle began her coaching career as