The Georgia women’s tennis team’s top-ranked Katarina Jokic defeated Emilia Occhipinti of Grand Canyon 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday in the first-round of the Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu, CA.

“It was an interesting first-round match,” said Georgia head coach Jeff Wallace. “Kat did a good job of changing some things and showing good discipline at key moments.”

Jokic improved to 4-0 on the year with her latest victory. Today (Friday), she will face Jessica Failla, a Pepperdine graduate student. On Thursday, Failla defeated Kalani Soli (Liberty) 6-1,6-1 in her first-round match. Failla is ranked No. 32 nationally. Jokic is one of seven of the nation’s top 20 ranked women’s players in the field.

There will be two rounds of singles Friday. Live scoring will be available for all matches through Tennis Ticker, while live streaming for select matches at Malibu Racquet Club will be provided by TempuZ. ESPNU will re-air the finals on Oct. 1 beginning at 4 p.m. ET. The women’s and men’s singles champions earn automatic entry into the 2019 Oracle ITA National Fall Championships, which will be held Nov. 6-10 in Newport Beach, California. The Oracle ITA Masters marks the first of four tournaments hosted by the ITA during the fall. The other events are the ITA All-American Championships Presented by Saint Francis Health System (Oct. 5-13; Tulsa, Okla.); ITA Cup (Oct. 17-20; Rome, Ga.) and Oracle ITA National Fall Championships (Nov. 6-10; Newport Beach, Calif.).

The rest of the Georgia women’s tennis team is in Fort Worth, Texas for the Big 12 versus SEC Challenge that begins Friday afternoon on the campus of Texas Christian University.

A round-robin event of singles and doubles, the field will include players from Texas A&M, Tech Tech, the Bulldogs and the host Frogs. Georgia senior Marta Gonzalez is ranked No. 13 nationally in singles to start the fall while junior Vivian Wolff is No. 37, sophomore Meg Kowalski is No. 69 and senior Elena Christofi is No. 113. The Wolff/Christofi team checks in at No. 19 in the doubles rankings while freshman Lea Ma is No. 5 in the top 10 Freshman/Newcomer rankings. On Friday, the Bulldogs will start with doubles at 1 p.m. ET followed by singles at 3:30 p.m.