Maria Linares

Maria Linares, who was named as the ITA Central Region Most Improved Senior and as the recipient of the ITA’s Cissie Leary Sportsmanship Award in 2022, is in her first season as a volunteer assistant coach at Florida State.  She was named the ITA Central Region Freshman of the Year in 2018 at Kansas State. 

Linares won 139 matches (77 singles and 62 doubles) during her collegiate career, and earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Kansas State in 2022.

Linares, a native of Maracay, Venezuela, was named as the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, was a two-time All-Big 12 Second Team selections in singles and was named to the Big 12 Freshman Team in 2018 as she won 20 singles matches and 15 doubles matches for the Wildcats.  She won five matches against ITA Nationally ranked players, as she played the No. 1 through No. 4 court positions during her career. 

Linares helped Kansas State into the national rankings throughout her career.  The Wildcats we ranked as high as No. 6 in the Central Region, while Linares was ranked as high as No. 106 in the individual rankings during her career. 

In earning her business degree in Business Administration, Linares was an ITA Scholar Athlete honoree in each of her four years, and was named as the Big 12 Scholar Athlete of the year for Women’s Tennis in 2022.  She was an Academic All-Big 12 First-Team selection and earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.7 during her career.