WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- After securing three new Boilermakers on National Signing Day, the Purdue women's tennis team was recognized by TennisRecruiting.net for acquiring the No. 10 class in the nation. That mark stands as the second highest in the Big Ten Conference, and garners the Boilermakers their second top-15 class in the last two years.
Ena Babic, Purdue's first commit of the three, hails from Cakovec, Croatia, where she was ranked No. 1 nationally in both under-16 and under-18 play. Additionally, she won the Croatian under-18 singles title in 2015 and both the Croatian senior national singles title and doubles title in 2016.
Babic also represented Croatia as a member of the Summer Cup team in 2016 - an honor bestowed only to the top players in the country -- and was ranked as high as No. 291 by the ITF.
Her most prominent victory came last summer as well when the then 17-year-old beat Silvija Njiric, who is currently ranked 370 in the world by the WTA.
The Boilermakers then added another veteran of the Summer Cup in Zala Dovnik, who is originally from Maribor, Slovenia. She also represented her country in the Winter Cup and is a five-time Slovenian national champion in doubles.
Dovnik was ranked as high as No. 478 by the ITF, and immediately impressed assistant coach Anthony Nguyen during his trip to a Slovenian tournament.
"She comes from a really good family [and is a] hard worker," Nguyen said. "Both her parents are doctors, and they value education. We're really happy to have her at Purdue."
Seira Shimizu rounded out NSD for Purdue. The Saitama, Japan, native has been training and studying in California -- Nguyen's home state -- for the last four years, where she won the Azusa Pacific Summer ITA singles tournament and was a finalist in singles at the Cal State LA Summer ITA tournament.
Additionally, Shimizu was ranked as high as No. 236 by the ITF.
"We couldn't be more excited to have Ena, Zala and Seira joining the team next year," head coach Laura Glitz said. "All three young ladies are wonderful people who have consistently demonstrated great commitment to their tennis and their academics. When Anthony and I set out to recruit the 2017 class, we talked about recruiting student-athletes with great character, with great work ethic and who are great competitors. I believe all three young ladies are exactly the type of people we want as Boilermakers."