Sophomore MaryLove Edwards collected NAIA All-America accolades in helping lead the Grizzlies win the 2025 national title

New-Look Women’s Tennis Ready to Make Their Mark This Spring

1/21/2026 10:30:00 AM

Five newcomers join two returning pieces from past NAIA national championship squads to form the nucleus of a Georgia Gwinnett College women’s tennis team that’s primed to soon begin the 2026 season.

The new players aren’t the only fresh faces for the Grizzlies as first-year Head Coach Tom Rees takes over a program that has captured the past nine NAIA championships. Despite all that success, the team enters this spring ranked No. 2 in the preseason national ranking.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that were in a period of rebuilding. College sports are often cyclical, and our dynasty is going to recycle here,” stated Rees, whose team is scheduled to open the dual match season at NCAA Division II Lander University (South Carolina) on Thursday, January 22.

This is the first week of the 2026 team’s season. Regardless of whether we end up as national champions, 10th or 25th, we have already come together well as a group and we’re all in agreement that we will have the best practices, be the most professional team, and have the best player development and team culture. Those are the things that we can control this season,

- Head Coach Tom Rees

GGC’s key returning players feature sophomore MaryLove Edwards, a 2025 second All-America team member. She posted a 9-2 singles record, including 4-0 in No. 4 court matches, and was victorious in eight of her nine doubles matches during her debut collegiate season. Edwards was part of the team that clinched the important doubles point in last year’s 4-1 victory over top-ranked Kaiser University (Florida) in the NAIA national championship match.

Senior Versace Gatti played a key role in GGC’s 2024 team that won four singles points to capture the national championship with a 4-3 come-from-behind victory. She earned third-team All-American honors that spring after compiling a 10-0 singles record and going 8-2 in doubles action.

Senior Versace Gatti hits a backhand during the 2024 NAIA National Championship tournament in Mobile, Alabama

Meanwhile, the first task for Rees after being named to take over the prominent program was finding replacements for three graduating seniors and two departing players.

Fortunately, transfers and two freshmen bring quality and productive playing skills to the 2026 season.

Everybody in college tennis knows about GGC, so the transfers bring a certain excitement level to the program. They know the proud heritage that we have and understand that it is a great honor and privilege to play for the Grizzlies. We’re going to attack each match at a championship-level and see where we land in May (at the NAIA championships),

- Head Coach Tom Rees, whose team had a 16-2 record last spring

Among the newcomers, junior Mareia Simon Sanchez earned all-conference honors in 2025 at William Woods University (Missouri) and stood No. 48 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s national singles rankings.

Meanwhile, classmate Suryanshi won all 11 singles matches with NCAA Division II University of Indianapolis (Indiana) last spring. Before that she tallied 27 victories across singles and doubles matches at nationally ranked Division II Carson-Newman University (Tennessee).

Senior Nicoleta Anestiada also has considerable collegiate experience after transferring from NAIA LSU Shreveport, where the Pilots had a 13-2 record. She also previously played at Division II Bemidji State University (Minnesota).

Freshmen ready to make their contributions this season are Toluwani Akosile from Loganville, Georgia, and Minami Tan from Australia.

Tom Rees became the third head coach in program history following the 2025 fall campaign

Rees begins his first season as head coach of the Grizzlies after having previous assistant coaching stints at Division I Clemson University (South Carolina), University of the Incarnate Word (Texas) and Kansas State University, along with Division II University of North Georgia and Lenoir-Rhyne University (North Carolina).

“My personality is well suited to coaching women’s tennis after doing it for the past seven years. I am focused on the process for our program. Everything starts with a vision and getting everybody to perform to a high standard,” said Rees.

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