The UC Riverside men’s and women’s tennis teams have begun the 2025 season.

The men's team played its first match against Loyola Marymount on Jan. 14 in Los Angeles, and the women's team played its first match against the University of Nebraska at home on Jan. 16.

Conference play for the women's team began on Feb. 19 against Hawaii, while the men's team will begin conference games on March 26 against San Diego.

New additions this season include Elijah Kook, Alexey Efremov, and Caden Bell for the men's team, and Sam Condevillamar, Chloe Vu, and Ramey Yu for the women's team.

Returning players for the men’s team include Hugo Degrande, who went 6-9 in singles and 5-13 in doubles overall last season; Ryan Huynh, who went 3-10 in singles overall; Lucas Ibarrondo Suarez, who went 3-12 in singles and 5-13 in doubles overall; and Justin Lamy, who went 5-9 in singles and 4-14 in doubles overall.

Returning players for the women’s team include Kei Kato, who went 4-7 in singles overall last season; Crystal Kim, who went 7-10 in singles and 6-11 in doubles overall; and Nikki Shahbazi, who went 1-14 in singles overall. Olivia McIntosh, a dual-sport athlete competing in both track and field and tennis, also returns after joining the team in 2023.

The men's Big West Tennis Championship is scheduled for April 25-27, while the women's championship is scheduled for April 24-27.

Both competitions use a single-elimination format featuring all 10 Big West teams. Lower-seeded teams will compete in the first round, with higher-seeded teams entering later. The winners advance through the quarterfinals and semifinals before the final two teams compete for the Big West title and a spot in the NCAA Division I Tennis Championship.

“One of our key goals this season will be learning how to win when competition is tough,” said head coach Mattias Johansson.

Johansson is entering his 10th season as UCR’s head tennis coach after taking over in 2015. He led the 2019 Highlanders to a 20-16 record, marking the most wins by a Big West team that season and UCR’s first winning record as a conference member. That season also featured a program-record 28 singles wins from All-Big West honorable mention Gilbert Chung. Johansson previously coached at Vanguard University from 1996 to 2015 and was inducted into the Vanguard Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011 as both a student-athlete and coach. 

New assistant coaches Bobby Kielty and Robert Pearson have joined Johansson’s staff. Kielty has been the head tennis pro at Canyon Lake Country Club for four years and previously coached high school tennis at Temescal Canyon, where he helped the program rise from Division 5 to Division 1. Pearson served as head coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Vanguard from 1992 to 1995, where he earned the Golden State Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors twice. He later coached at Boise State, where he led the Broncos to a No. 7 national ranking.

The men's tennis team's upcoming match is against the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on March 10. The women's tennis team will play Lehigh University on March 10.