PORTLAND, Ore. --- Less than a week after signing the program’s first-ever Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranked player, University of Portland head coach Susie Campbell-Gross has doubled up with the announcement that Lucia Butkovska has signed a National Letter of Intent with the Pilots. Butkovska has been ranked as high as No. 652 in the WTA singles rankings and is currently at No. 875. As a junior player on the ITF circuit, Butkovska reached No. 22 in the world rankings and won numerous singles and doubles championships while competing in major events.

Butkovska, a native of Bratislava, Slovakia, will enroll at Portland in the fall of 2013 and will join fellow ranked standout Jelena Lazarevic as part of the best recruiting class in program history.

"We are very excited to welcome Lucia to the University of Portland tennis family,” Campbell-Gross said. “Lucia is one of the best players entering college tennis next season and we are happy that she chose to continue her career as a Pilot. She is a key component for what we are hoping will be the best recruiting class in the nation. Filip (Zivkovic) did an amazing job of showing Lucia that UP is the right place for her to continue her career. I think that she has a very good idea of what we are trying to build here and we are all excited for the future. She is a great person from a wonderful family that puts a lot of emphasis on education, which is another reason why Lucia though that UP would be a great fit."

Butkovska has played in major junior events at Wimbledon, the French Open and Australian Open. She has reached the finals of Futures singles tournaments in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as semifinals in Solin, Croatia and Antalya, Turkey. Butkovska also reached No. 404 WTA ranking in doubles while winning seven doubles titles on the Futures circuit.  

"There are only a handful of players at Lucia's level entering college tennis this year,” said Zivkovic, a former member of the Pilot men’s tennis team who is now in his third year as a women’s assistant. “Her WTA ranking history is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself. She is very talented and our hope is that we can help her reach her full potential. Lucia has a wealth of international experience and played on the biggest stages for tennis, including three Grand Slam tournaments. Her experience will be a tremendous asset to our young and very talented team. The fact that we managed to sign two WTA ranked players in a ten day span speaks volumes about the direction of our program. We are hoping to create a nationally recognized program and all of our players, returning and incoming, are buying into our passion and vision. The next few years on The Bluff are going to be very exciting for Pilot women's tennis.”

Butkovska and Lazarevic will join a talented returning group that includes sophomore Maja Mladenovic, who earned All-West Coast Conference honors after posting a team-best 13 singles wins at the No. 1 position. Tori Troesch, Saroop Dhatt and Emily Gould also had solid freshman campaigns to build upon for the Pilots.