From Separate Paths To Shared Success: Erika Matsuda And Reece Carter’s Journey To Washington
March 18, 2026 | Women's Tennis
SEATTLE – Erika Matsuda has played at some of the temples of tennis: Melbourne Park … Roland Garros … the All-England Club … Flushing Meadows.
Yet, she has never been happier than to be stroking her stuff at the Nordstrom Tennis Center.
Reece Carter has played in Arizona, where the sun is always out and the temperature is always warm in the desert outdoors.
Yet, she has never been happier than to be playing in a place where the sun is often hiding, the temperature is frequently cool (or even downright cold), and the only option on many days is to play indoors.
Decidedly divergent backgrounds, to be sure – the soft-spoken Matsuda from Yokohama, Japan, and the chatty, outgoing Carter from Victoria, British Columbia.
But these two University of Washington seniors have combined to form a solid 1-2 combination atop the team ladder as the Huskies continue racking up the wins to keep themselves in the thick of things on the national ladder.
Following Saturday's 4-1 victory against Oregon in Eugene, Washington is now 12-0, with a 3-0 mark in the early stages of the Big Ten Conference schedule.
"We haven't really been thinking too much about the winning streak," said Carter, in her second year with the Huskies after playing with Arizona as freshman and sophomore. "In all honesty, we've just been showing up every day with the same positive attitude and having a lot of fun."
Added Matsuda, who has been at Washington all four years of her college career, "I think the culture is one of the big things for us. We always care about our teammates – there's no one who is selfish. I think that's one of the reasons everyone feels comfortable being together and being able to compete."
Under the guidance of 12th-year head coach Robin Stephenson, the Huskies are taking aim at their first conference crown and fifth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, having reached the second round in 2023 and again in 2025. Last year's squad went 21-5, tied for the second-most victories in program history. (The 1980 team won 25.)
"Any win is a good win in college tennis, just in general," Carter said. "Every win, we always go home and say, 'We took care of the job today; now next weekend, we've got to do the same thing.' … You never want to get too high or too low.
Stephenson isn't the least bit hesitant in crediting Matsuda and Carter with showing the way.
"I would take them at 1-2 in any match and feel confident they can get it done," Stephenson said. "They have a lot of experience, they're very mature, and they've come a long way in the time they've worked with us. Their maturity and consistency and the way they lead by example – I can't say enough about them."
ALL TENNIS, ALL THE TIME FOR MATSUDA
While most college athletes played other sports before settling on their specialty, Matsuda essentially was a one-sporter right from the get-go.
"Only tennis – I started when I was 4 or 5," she said. "My brother started at the same time. When I was watching my brother play, I was like, 'Ooo, that looks fun.' I asked my mom to (let me) join the tennis academy."
Matsuda and the game clicked almost immediately. When she was 8, she went to watch the Australian Open, the first of the calendar year's four Grand Slam events, "and I set a goal of playing in the Australian Open."
In 2019, at the age of 15, that goal became a reality when she played singles in the first round of the Australian Open Junior Championships.
"It was amazing. That was the biggest goal that I had in my life," said Matsuda, now 22 and whose teammates call her Emat way more than they ever call her Erika. She doesn't remember a lot of the details, but says, "I was just happy playing there."
That was just the start. In addition to numerous tournaments in her native Japan, Matsuda's junior tennis journey took her to China and Czechia … Malaysia and Mexico … Poland and Portugal … and even all of those places don't make for a complete list.
She also has completed the Junior Grand Slam tour. Matsuda returned to the Australian Open in 2020, reaching the second round of singles and playing in the first round of doubles. That same year, she reached the doubles quarterfinals at the Roland Garros Junior Championships in Paris. In 2021, she played in the first round of singles and doubles in The Junior Championships at Wimbledon, and in the first round of singles at the U.S. Open Juniors.
When the time came to close that chapter of her tennis book, she ultimately set her sights on Seattle and a place with the Huskies.
"There were so many factors," she said. "The location – compared to (someplace) like New York, it was much closer to my home country. The weather is so nice – I like the Seattle rain. When I committed here, it was so great. I loved Robin, and I loved all my teammate and my old teammates."
Added Stephenson, "She enjoys playing indoor tennis, and she's also very academic. I think Seattle being a direct flight to Japan and some of the other culture parts of Seattle, she felt very comfortable here."
During her first three years, Matsuda built a 45-33 singles record and a 45-29 ledger in doubles.
This has been by far her best season. Through last Saturday's match at Oregon, she is 12-4 in singles: 7-4 during last fall's individual tournament season, which saw her reach the second round of the NCAAs; 5-0 so far (all at the No. 1 spot) during the still-in-progress team portion of the season.
Matsuda is 19-4 in doubles, all but one of those 23 matches with partner Carina Syrtveit: 8-3 last fall, getting to the second round of NCAAs, and 11-1 this winter.
She has two Big Ten Player of the Week honors – one last fall, and more recently on March 11.
But to Matsuda, the results – especially this season – are just part of the story. The other part is her mindset and her outlook on the way to achieving those results.
"From my first year, I just played tennis just to win. I didn't care how I played tennis. I was always behind the baseline and just hit a ton of balls," she said.
"Now, I feel like I'm playing the tennis that I really wanted to play. It's just really fun," she added. "This is what I wanted for so long. Now, I feel like it's working really well. I started my freshman year and it didn't really work well. I wanted to play more aggressively.
"It took three years to reach here, but I'm playing great."
That's clearly evident to Stephenson.
"She's almost like a surgeon. She can figure things out and has this way of going about point construction and breaking an opponent down," Stephenson said. "She's being more aggressive, taking control, coming to the net more and taking ponts on her terms. She's still able to go into lockdown mode, but is also being a person who punches first and plays with more confidence and more aggression."
CARTER'S TWISTING, TURNING TREK
Instead of going down the line with her forehand, Reece Carter could have been going for the fairway with her driver.
Yup … the 21-year-old Canadian native just might have been a golfer rather than a tennis player.
"I'd moved to Florida (with my family) when I was younger and competed in both tennis and golf," Carter said. "I had to decide. I was 12 or 13 when I made the choice to go all-in on tennis.
"I'm really loud and golf was just not the path for me," she said with a hearty laugh. "I'm not a calm person, and (golf) just wasn't working. Well … it was working, but it wouldn't have worked in the long run."
For Carter, tennis has worked out just fine, particularly during this, her final year with Washington. She has won 31 of her 39 completed matches: 19-3 in singles (11-0 this winter), 12-5 in doubles (7-1 winter).
In January, prior to the start of the team season, Carter was on the Big Ten Players to Watch list.
"Honestly, it's just my confidence and my overall happiness," she said. "I've just been at a point for so long where I've always had pressure on myself and always had high expectations for myself. But this year, E-Mat and I have talked about it a lot, and our main goal was to have fun.
"If you watch all of our matches this year, we've both really embodied that: having fun, competing, and enjoying it."
Carter's college tennis trek has had its twists and turns.
In 2018, she and her doubles partner won the Canadian Nationals title in the U-14 age category. That same year, she reached the singles quarterfinals in that same tournament.
When it came time to choose a college, Carter was a highly-regarded recruit. But she also was dealing with Canada's strict pandemic-related restrictions.
"It was very difficult. I wasn't allowed to leave Canada, I couldn't play in tournaments – I wasn't even really allowed to train," she said of the lockdown. "I had to send videos to schools. Things kind of fell into place and I signed with Arizona. I was 16 years old and I thought I wanted to go to a really sunny place."
Carter had a solid two years with the Wildcats, making the All Pac-12 first teams both seasons (2022-23 and 23-24). She went 22-7 in singles as a freshman, mostly at No. 1, with a few at No. 2, and was 11-15 in doubles. As a sophomore, she played No. 1 singles and doubles the entire season, Carter racked up14 singles wins (four against nationally ranked opponents) and 15 doubles victories (five vs. ranked opponents).
But even with the success and the sun, Carter was still a long way from home … and she was feeling it.
"I needed a switch-up in my life. I'm from Canada and I wanted to be closer to home," she said. (Victoria, on the southeast tip of Vancouver Island, is a short and scenic trip, whether sailing there directly from Seattle, or from Port Angeles on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, or from Tsawwassen, which is about half an hour northwest of the Washington-B.C. border).
"Everything just kind of fell into place here. Talking to the girls, talking to the coaches, I felt really at home in the transfer process," she said.
Carter certainly has made herself at home on the courts while now adorned in Washington colors.
"Junior tennis was great for me; I really liked it," she said. "But I feel there's a different level of excitement for college tennis. You're traveling together, you're eating together, you're practicing together every day. So much of it brings out the best in yourself."
Stephenson sees that particular trait from Carter when a match comes right down to it.
"She has a skill and ability to flip a switch when it's game time. She has this relentless pursuit to get the job done," she said. "She thrives on the team environment. She's one of the energy leaders out there and brings passion and fire on match days, for sure."
COMIN' DOWN THE STRETCH
There's still plenty of tennis on left on the schedule – 10 more regular-season matches, then the Big Ten Championships at Ohio State on April 23-26 and finally the NCAA Championships on May 14-17 in Athens, Georgia.
On the other hand, that's all the tennis that's left on the schedule for Matsuda and Carter. Both are already thinking about what's next.
Matsuda is majoring in Food Systems, Nutrition & Health. Last year, she started working at food and drink companies in Japan. Carter is a real estate major and is setting her sights on law school, with real estate law or even sports law as possible pathways.
More immediately, however, are upcoming contests against top-flight opponents such as UCLA on April 5 and Ohio State on April 19, both of whom are currently in the national top 10. But in reality, neither Matsuda nor Carter is looking any farther ahead than this coming weekend's trip to the Midwest to visit Nebraska on Friday and Iowa on Sunday.
"In my first year, I was kind of struggling with that kind of stuff – I was confused because I'd never played any team competition," Matsuda said. "I (feel like) I can't play individual tournaments anymore – I feel lonely. It's just so fun playing beside my teammates and competing together, especially this year."
Added Carter, "We're loving each other and having fun.
"We just don't want it to end."
Yet, she has never been happier than to be stroking her stuff at the Nordstrom Tennis Center.
Reece Carter has played in Arizona, where the sun is always out and the temperature is always warm in the desert outdoors.
Yet, she has never been happier than to be playing in a place where the sun is often hiding, the temperature is frequently cool (or even downright cold), and the only option on many days is to play indoors.
Decidedly divergent backgrounds, to be sure – the soft-spoken Matsuda from Yokohama, Japan, and the chatty, outgoing Carter from Victoria, British Columbia.
But these two University of Washington seniors have combined to form a solid 1-2 combination atop the team ladder as the Huskies continue racking up the wins to keep themselves in the thick of things on the national ladder.
Following Saturday's 4-1 victory against Oregon in Eugene, Washington is now 12-0, with a 3-0 mark in the early stages of the Big Ten Conference schedule.
"We haven't really been thinking too much about the winning streak," said Carter, in her second year with the Huskies after playing with Arizona as freshman and sophomore. "In all honesty, we've just been showing up every day with the same positive attitude and having a lot of fun."
Added Matsuda, who has been at Washington all four years of her college career, "I think the culture is one of the big things for us. We always care about our teammates – there's no one who is selfish. I think that's one of the reasons everyone feels comfortable being together and being able to compete."
Under the guidance of 12th-year head coach Robin Stephenson, the Huskies are taking aim at their first conference crown and fifth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, having reached the second round in 2023 and again in 2025. Last year's squad went 21-5, tied for the second-most victories in program history. (The 1980 team won 25.)
"Any win is a good win in college tennis, just in general," Carter said. "Every win, we always go home and say, 'We took care of the job today; now next weekend, we've got to do the same thing.' … You never want to get too high or too low.
Stephenson isn't the least bit hesitant in crediting Matsuda and Carter with showing the way.
"I would take them at 1-2 in any match and feel confident they can get it done," Stephenson said. "They have a lot of experience, they're very mature, and they've come a long way in the time they've worked with us. Their maturity and consistency and the way they lead by example – I can't say enough about them."
ALL TENNIS, ALL THE TIME FOR MATSUDA
While most college athletes played other sports before settling on their specialty, Matsuda essentially was a one-sporter right from the get-go.
"Only tennis – I started when I was 4 or 5," she said. "My brother started at the same time. When I was watching my brother play, I was like, 'Ooo, that looks fun.' I asked my mom to (let me) join the tennis academy."
Matsuda and the game clicked almost immediately. When she was 8, she went to watch the Australian Open, the first of the calendar year's four Grand Slam events, "and I set a goal of playing in the Australian Open."
In 2019, at the age of 15, that goal became a reality when she played singles in the first round of the Australian Open Junior Championships.
"It was amazing. That was the biggest goal that I had in my life," said Matsuda, now 22 and whose teammates call her Emat way more than they ever call her Erika. She doesn't remember a lot of the details, but says, "I was just happy playing there."
That was just the start. In addition to numerous tournaments in her native Japan, Matsuda's junior tennis journey took her to China and Czechia … Malaysia and Mexico … Poland and Portugal … and even all of those places don't make for a complete list.
She also has completed the Junior Grand Slam tour. Matsuda returned to the Australian Open in 2020, reaching the second round of singles and playing in the first round of doubles. That same year, she reached the doubles quarterfinals at the Roland Garros Junior Championships in Paris. In 2021, she played in the first round of singles and doubles in The Junior Championships at Wimbledon, and in the first round of singles at the U.S. Open Juniors.
When the time came to close that chapter of her tennis book, she ultimately set her sights on Seattle and a place with the Huskies.
"There were so many factors," she said. "The location – compared to (someplace) like New York, it was much closer to my home country. The weather is so nice – I like the Seattle rain. When I committed here, it was so great. I loved Robin, and I loved all my teammate and my old teammates."
Added Stephenson, "She enjoys playing indoor tennis, and she's also very academic. I think Seattle being a direct flight to Japan and some of the other culture parts of Seattle, she felt very comfortable here."
During her first three years, Matsuda built a 45-33 singles record and a 45-29 ledger in doubles.
This has been by far her best season. Through last Saturday's match at Oregon, she is 12-4 in singles: 7-4 during last fall's individual tournament season, which saw her reach the second round of the NCAAs; 5-0 so far (all at the No. 1 spot) during the still-in-progress team portion of the season.
Matsuda is 19-4 in doubles, all but one of those 23 matches with partner Carina Syrtveit: 8-3 last fall, getting to the second round of NCAAs, and 11-1 this winter.
She has two Big Ten Player of the Week honors – one last fall, and more recently on March 11.
But to Matsuda, the results – especially this season – are just part of the story. The other part is her mindset and her outlook on the way to achieving those results.
"From my first year, I just played tennis just to win. I didn't care how I played tennis. I was always behind the baseline and just hit a ton of balls," she said.
"Now, I feel like I'm playing the tennis that I really wanted to play. It's just really fun," she added. "This is what I wanted for so long. Now, I feel like it's working really well. I started my freshman year and it didn't really work well. I wanted to play more aggressively.
"It took three years to reach here, but I'm playing great."
That's clearly evident to Stephenson.
"She's almost like a surgeon. She can figure things out and has this way of going about point construction and breaking an opponent down," Stephenson said. "She's being more aggressive, taking control, coming to the net more and taking ponts on her terms. She's still able to go into lockdown mode, but is also being a person who punches first and plays with more confidence and more aggression."
CARTER'S TWISTING, TURNING TREK
Instead of going down the line with her forehand, Reece Carter could have been going for the fairway with her driver.
Yup … the 21-year-old Canadian native just might have been a golfer rather than a tennis player.
"I'd moved to Florida (with my family) when I was younger and competed in both tennis and golf," Carter said. "I had to decide. I was 12 or 13 when I made the choice to go all-in on tennis.
"I'm really loud and golf was just not the path for me," she said with a hearty laugh. "I'm not a calm person, and (golf) just wasn't working. Well … it was working, but it wouldn't have worked in the long run."
For Carter, tennis has worked out just fine, particularly during this, her final year with Washington. She has won 31 of her 39 completed matches: 19-3 in singles (11-0 this winter), 12-5 in doubles (7-1 winter).
In January, prior to the start of the team season, Carter was on the Big Ten Players to Watch list.
"Honestly, it's just my confidence and my overall happiness," she said. "I've just been at a point for so long where I've always had pressure on myself and always had high expectations for myself. But this year, E-Mat and I have talked about it a lot, and our main goal was to have fun.
"If you watch all of our matches this year, we've both really embodied that: having fun, competing, and enjoying it."
Carter's college tennis trek has had its twists and turns.
In 2018, she and her doubles partner won the Canadian Nationals title in the U-14 age category. That same year, she reached the singles quarterfinals in that same tournament.
When it came time to choose a college, Carter was a highly-regarded recruit. But she also was dealing with Canada's strict pandemic-related restrictions.
"It was very difficult. I wasn't allowed to leave Canada, I couldn't play in tournaments – I wasn't even really allowed to train," she said of the lockdown. "I had to send videos to schools. Things kind of fell into place and I signed with Arizona. I was 16 years old and I thought I wanted to go to a really sunny place."
Carter had a solid two years with the Wildcats, making the All Pac-12 first teams both seasons (2022-23 and 23-24). She went 22-7 in singles as a freshman, mostly at No. 1, with a few at No. 2, and was 11-15 in doubles. As a sophomore, she played No. 1 singles and doubles the entire season, Carter racked up14 singles wins (four against nationally ranked opponents) and 15 doubles victories (five vs. ranked opponents).
But even with the success and the sun, Carter was still a long way from home … and she was feeling it.
"I needed a switch-up in my life. I'm from Canada and I wanted to be closer to home," she said. (Victoria, on the southeast tip of Vancouver Island, is a short and scenic trip, whether sailing there directly from Seattle, or from Port Angeles on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, or from Tsawwassen, which is about half an hour northwest of the Washington-B.C. border).
"Everything just kind of fell into place here. Talking to the girls, talking to the coaches, I felt really at home in the transfer process," she said.
Carter certainly has made herself at home on the courts while now adorned in Washington colors.
"Junior tennis was great for me; I really liked it," she said. "But I feel there's a different level of excitement for college tennis. You're traveling together, you're eating together, you're practicing together every day. So much of it brings out the best in yourself."
Stephenson sees that particular trait from Carter when a match comes right down to it.
"She has a skill and ability to flip a switch when it's game time. She has this relentless pursuit to get the job done," she said. "She thrives on the team environment. She's one of the energy leaders out there and brings passion and fire on match days, for sure."
COMIN' DOWN THE STRETCH
There's still plenty of tennis on left on the schedule – 10 more regular-season matches, then the Big Ten Championships at Ohio State on April 23-26 and finally the NCAA Championships on May 14-17 in Athens, Georgia.
On the other hand, that's all the tennis that's left on the schedule for Matsuda and Carter. Both are already thinking about what's next.
Matsuda is majoring in Food Systems, Nutrition & Health. Last year, she started working at food and drink companies in Japan. Carter is a real estate major and is setting her sights on law school, with real estate law or even sports law as possible pathways.
More immediately, however, are upcoming contests against top-flight opponents such as UCLA on April 5 and Ohio State on April 19, both of whom are currently in the national top 10. But in reality, neither Matsuda nor Carter is looking any farther ahead than this coming weekend's trip to the Midwest to visit Nebraska on Friday and Iowa on Sunday.
"In my first year, I was kind of struggling with that kind of stuff – I was confused because I'd never played any team competition," Matsuda said. "I (feel like) I can't play individual tournaments anymore – I feel lonely. It's just so fun playing beside my teammates and competing together, especially this year."
Added Carter, "We're loving each other and having fun.
"We just don't want it to end."
Players Mentioned
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