THE OFFICIAL ATHLETICS SITE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH ALABAMA LIONS

University of North Alabama Director of Tennis Olaya Garrido-Rivas enters her fourth season with the Lions for the 2025-26 season.

UNA Director of Athletics Dr. Josh Looney announced the hiring of the former TCU standout and former NJIT head women's tennis coach on June 10, 2022.

Garrido-Rivas has seen a productive and successful run in her three years, totaling 41 wins across the 2023, 2024 and 2025 seasons. Her first season resulted in a 7-15 record – the most wins in program history since 2018 while setting a then-Division I program record for single-season wins. 

In 2024, Garrido-Rivas improved on her first-season results by leading Women's Tennis to a 15-8 record in 2024. The 15 wins marked an eight-win turnaround from 2023 and established a new Division I program record in season wins. The season was highlighted by freshmen Ada Karabacak and Emma Ansorge winning a combined three Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Week awards for the most in the Division I era. Ansorge also secured the Lions’ first ASUN All-Freshman team selection.

The 2025 season saw Garrido-Rivas lead the Lions to their most successful campaign in Division I program history. North Alabama went 19-6 record, finishing with the most program single-season wins and are the most since winning 21 matches in the 1988 season — 37 years ago. UNA won five postseason awards from the Atlantic Sun Conference or College Sports Communicators, including Garrido-Rivas claiming a share of the ASUN Coach of the Year. The Lions' season culminated with an ASUN Tournament Finals appearance along with a semifinal appearance at the UTR NIT Tournament.
 
Prior to joining North Alabama, Garrido-Rivas had served as head women's tennis coach at NJIT since November 2021. She also has additional head coaching experience at Division II Missouri Western State from 2019-21.
 
In her one season at NJIT, Garrido-Rivas led the Highlanders to a remarkable season that ended with a loss in the Southland Conference Tournament Championship match and included an upset of conference top seed Northwestern State in the semifinals. It was NJIT's first season with 12 or more wins since 2018-19, four Highlanders were named to the All-Southland Conference team, the school's tennis program got its first-ever win over a Power Five school with a 5-2 win over Rutgers, the team had three separate three-match winning streaks and posted four different 7-0 shutouts during the season.

Garrido-Rivas turned around the tennis program at Missouri Western, leading the Griffons to a first-round win in the MIAA Tournament over Northeastern State in 2021. The win marked the first in postseason play since 2012 and the first opening round win since 2011. Garrido-Rivas sparked a revival that saw MWSU debut at no. 5 in the Oracle/ITA Central Regional Rankings in 2021. She also produced three All-MIAA selections for Missouri Western in 2021, as well as MWSU's first UTR/ITA National Player of the Week and an MIAA Women's Tennis Athlete of the Week. She departed the Missouri Western program to accept her first Division I head coaching opportunity and left the Griffons with their highest preseason ranking in 25 years.
 
Off the court, Garrido-Rivas' program was honored with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA)'s Central Region Community Service Award for logging over 100 hours of service as a team. The women's tennis team also carried a 3.7 GPA - the highest in the athletic department.
 
Prior to MWSU, Garrido-Rivas  spent two seasons as an assistant women's tennis coach at Middle Tennessee State (2017-19). At Middle Tennessee, Garrido-Rivas helped the team jump 121 spots in the ITA rankings during her first season.
 
The native of Gijon, Asturias, Spain was a second team All-Big 12 selection as a women's tennis student-athlete at Texas Christian University in 2017 and was named the Big 12 Women's Tennis Newcomer of the Year in 2016 after transferring to TCU from the University of South Florida. She graduated from TCU in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Studies with a minor in General Business. Garrido-Rivas earned her Master's degree in Leisure and Sport Management from Middle Tennessee in 2019 and worked as an instructor with the Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy during her graduate studies.
 
Garrido-Rivas was named second team All-Big 12 doubles as a senior after posting a 17-9 overall record along with an 18-9 mark in singles play at TCU. She was also a second team Academic All-Big 12 selection that season. As a junior at TCU she was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, posting more than 20 wins across doubles and singles action. In two seasons at USF, Garrido-Rivas posted 36 wins across singles and doubles and was named to the American Athletic All-Conference team as a freshman.