Five PBC Women’s Tennis Players Named ITA All-Americans

TEMPE, ARIZ — Five Peach Belt Conference women’s tennis players have been named All-Americans by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). Flagler’s Nadja Meier and Dana Heimen, Columbus State’s Nikoline Gullacksen and Mariana Ramirez and North Georgia’s Angelina Linnikova were recognized. The All-American honor is given to student-athletes that finish in the top 20 of the final ITA singles rankings and the top 10 in the last doubles rankings.

Meier earned All-America honors in singles and doubles while Linnikova was recognized for singles. Ramirez, Gullacksen and Heimen were honored for doubles.

Meier, a senior from Potsdam, Germany finished with a No. 4 ranking in singles, and with Heimen, was ranked No. 7 in the final listing. She finished the season with an impressive 32-5 record in singles and went 17-3 in dual matches. Meier went 6-2 against nationally-ranked competition and won her last seven matches. She was named the Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year and earned first team all-conference honors in both singles and doubles. Meier also won the ITA Southeast Regional in singles, and with Heimen, were the runners-up in doubles.

Heimen, a sophomore from Ketsch, Germany, went 17-4 in doubles along with Meier. The tandem was nearly unbeatable in dual matches with a stellar 10-1 record. Heimen and Meier were first team all-conference in doubles.

Gullacksen, a sophomore, and Ramirez, a graduate student, ranked third in the nation in doubles, posting a 25-3 record in doubles for the Cougars. The duo were 16-3 at #1 doubles, 5-0 in conference play.

Linnikova becomes the fifth All-American in program history and the third in the last three years for UNG. She’s the first singles All-American since Adrienne Bofinger was selected in 2019.

The Irkutsk, Russia native made headlines this season by going 3-2 against ITA nationally ranked opponents. That mark helped her climb as high as No. 6 in the ITA women’s singles rankings, which is the highest ranking an individual has ever earned in program history. The All-America selection is Linnikova’s second honor from the ITA this season. She was named the 2024 ITA Southeast Region Player to Watch back in April.

Linnikova earned three separate Peach Belt Conference honors this year as she was named to the PBC All-Conference First Team for Singles and Second Team for Doubles while also joining her doubles partner, senior Svetlana Teterina, as a member of the 2024 PBC Tournament Most Valuable Doubles Team.