MALIBU, Calif. — The Pepperdine women's tennis team will head to Knoxville, Tenn. for the 2026 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Kickoff Weekend, which was determined during the ITA Kickoff Weekend draft on Wednesday. 

Pepperdine will be the 3-seed in the Knoxville Regional, which includes Washington and Clemson, along with the host team, Tennessee. The Waves will face the 2-seed Washington Huskies in the first round, then play either the 1-seed Tennessee Lady Volunteers or the 4-seed Clemson Tigers to wrap up the weekend. Should the Waves go 2-0 during Kickoff Weekend, they will punch their ticket to their tenth-consecutive ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championship, which takes place at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois from Feb. 10-16, 2026.

The 2026 ITA Kickoff Weekend will take place from Jan. 23-26, 2026. Final dates and times are forthcoming.

The ITA Kickoff Weekend features 56 Division I tennis teams vying for 14 spots in the ITA Indoor Team National Championship. For the second consecutive year, the 14 host sites are determined using the final ITA rankings. During ITA Kickoff Weekend, the remaining teams select a host site to play at using a draft system, starting with the 15th team in the ITA rankings and ending when the full 56-team field is complete.

Last season, the Waves hosted the Malibu Regional and made their ninth consecutive ITA Division I National Women's Team Indoor Championship appearance. Pepperdine was most recently in Knoxville, Tenn. for the first two rounds of the 2025 NCAA Tournament, where they beat Wake Forest in the first round before falling to eventual NCAA quarterfinalist Tennessee in round two.

This past season under Interim Head Coach Tassilo Schmid, the Waves went 15-12, won their 11th consecutive West Coast Conference Tournament title and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. As a team, Pepperdine finished in the top 25 in the year-end ITA rankings for the 12th straight year.

A full 2025-26 schedule will be released later this year.