Big South Announces 2025 Preseason Women's Tennis Poll & Honors
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – Charleston Southern University has been voted the preseason favorite in the annual Big South Conference preseason poll by the league’s head coaches, the conference office announced Thursday. The Buccaneers received five of the six first-place votes and 35 points to win the conference in 2025. In addition, CSU junior
Marina Skegro (Zagreb, Croatia) was voted the Women’s Tennis Preseason Player of the Year.
Charleston Southern, which is 24-2 in conference matches since 2020, earned the top spot for the fourth consecutive year.
UNC Asheville, the 2024 Big South regular-season and conference tournament champion, was second in the preseason ranking with 31 points and collected the remaining first-place vote.
Gardner-Webb was third in the poll with 23 points, ahead of fourth-place
Presbyterian (16 points).
Radford placed fifth in the poll with 12 points, while
Longwood landed in the sixth and final spot with nine points.
Skegro won the Big South Fall Individual Championship as the No. 3 seed to advance to the ITA Conference Masters Championship. She competed in the singles bracket and claimed a victory in her opening match to reach the round of 16. Last spring, Skegro ended the season with a 12-2 singles mark, the most of anyone on the squad and the highest winning percentage in the Big South. She was 5-0 against Big South opponents last year and competed mainly on the No. 4 court where she was 9-2. Skegro won her final eight matches of the 2024 campaign, and also registered a 4-0 record in conference doubles at the No. 3 flight.
The 2025 women’s tennis season is scheduled to begin this Friday, Jan. 17. The 2024 Big South Women’s Tennis Championship is slated for April 18-19, and the top four teams in the final Big South standings will qualify for the conference tournament, with the semifinals and finals at the Lexington County Tennis Complex in Lexington, S.C. The champion receives the Big South’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
2025 WOMEN'S TENNIS PRESEASON POLL
| Rk - School (first-place votes) |
Points |
| 1 - Charleston Southern (5) |
35 |
| 2 - UNC Asheville (1) |
31 |
| 3 - Gardner-Webb |
23 |
| 4 - Presbyterian College |
16 |
| 5 - Radford |
12 |
| 6 - Longwood |
9 |
Note: points are based on a weighted system, with first-place votes receiving 6 points, followed by 5 points for second-place, and so on.