Tallahassee, FL - The Florida State women’s tennis team will travel to Greenville, S.C., to compete in its first tournament of the season, the 23rd annual Furman Fall Classic Tennis Tournament, beginning on Friday, September 25, at 9 a.m. The Mickel Tennis Center will welcome eight programs including Atlantic Coast Conference rivals Clemson and North Carolina in addition to the SEC’s South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Perhaps the strongest opponent the Seminoles will face this weekend is the Big Ten’s Northwestern who finished the season at No. 2 last season.

“I think every one of us is very excited to get on the road to Greenville, South Carolina this weekend,” FSU head coach Jennifer Hyde said. “Furman hosts a first class event and the strength of the competition this weekend is as good as any you can find at a tournament this time of year.”

All eight schools participating this weekend finished the season nationally-ranked with six of the schools ranked in the top 20. The Garnet and Gold faces a total of eighteen nationally-ranked opponents including Northwestern’s No. 1 Maria Mosolova.

“I'm anxious to see the girls compete, especially our two new freshmen,” Coach Hyde said. “This weekend is a great opportunity for all of our players to get six solid matches under their belts and begin to get back some of the match toughness they need. This tournament will be a great gauge of where we stand at this point and we can compare our results to this same event last year to see exactly where we are. Our expectations are high and everyone is very excited to kick off this season’s competition.”

Florida State will look to its four preseason-ranked players in No. 24 Noemie Scharle, No. 28 Katie Rybakova, No. 82 Federica Suess and No. 93 Lauren McCreless (Macfarlane). Matches are scheduled to go from Friday through Sunday, September 26.