STATESBORO – The Georgia Southern women's tennis team opens the 2020 season with a pair of matches in Jacksonville Saturday and Sunday at the UNF Tennis Complex.
 
Saturday's neutral site contest with Florida A&M is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. while Sunday's match with the hosts of North Florida is set for 11:00 a.m.  
 
Last season:
The Eagles pulled off a dramatic run to the 2019 Sun Belt Conference tournament finals. The eighth-seeded Eagles upset top-seeded Appalachian State and fourth-seeded UT-Arlington to earn just the second conference tournament finals berth in school history. The first round upset was only the second defeat of the top seed by an eight seed in an NCAA division I women's conference championship tournament and the first to do so since 2003. Overall, Georgia Southern compiled a 14-13 record and featured All-Sun Belt Conference doubles honorees Emilia Bujan and Arianne de Winter.
 
FAMU Series history:
The Eagles lead the series 11-4 and have won the last nine straight. The most recent meeting was this past season's 7-0 victory in Jacksonville.    
 
UNF Series history:
The Ospreys lead the series 9-2 including the past nine straight. UNF won last year's match 4-0 in Jacksonville. Both Eagle wins in the series came in the 1978 season, both by a score of 9-0.
 
About FAMU:
The Rattlers also open the season this weekend after competing in four fall tournaments including an overall team win at the HBCU Tournament in Atlanta. In 2019, the team went 5-2, 4-1 MEAC according to the conference website. FAMU have won four Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference women's tennis championships with the most recent coming in 1997.  
 
About UNF:
The Osprey also begin the season Sunday against Georgia Southern after going an impressive 17-8, 6-1 ASUN in 2019. The reigning ASUN champions saw last season's campaign end at No. 4 South Carolina in the NCAA Tournament. UNF has been a consistently dominant team in the ASUN having won eight conference titles in the last 10 years including the past five straight.  
 
What head coach Sean McCaffrey said:
"I believe we are all excited to get this season started. We had a great week of training down in Miami and a week of work here on campus and the team is fired up to start playing matches. We had a really good year in 2019 and the program has a great deal of momentum. We hope to continue working towards giving ourselves an opportunity to fight for a conference championship. We came up a little short last year and that is something that is fueling this year's team."
"We know the conference schedule will be a difficult one.  These challenging non-conference matches will be a good chance to work on developing our doubles teams and helping us all iron out everything we need to improve on in order to be ready to battle in the Sun Belt." 
"We have a team that is quite hungry and it's fun to coach a group that is this motivated to perform.  I'm very certain we are all eager to get down to Jacksonville this weekend and continuing to work towards our goals."
 
Up Next:
Following the weekend slate, the Eagles take a week off before taking on Texas A&M Jan. 31 in Orlando and Stetson Feb. 1 in Deland, Florida.