The NCAA has agreed to a proposed $2.02 million federal class-action settlement that removes prior limits on prize money for athletes before college enrollment. The settlement, led by co-plaintiffs Reese Brantmeier and Maya Joint, will allow athletes in all sports to accept prize earnings without the previous restrictions that once capped tennis players at retaining $10,000.

Brantmeier first filed an antitrust claim in 2024 after losing most of the $48,913 she earned at the 2021 US Open and missing the 2022 fall season when the NCAA questioned certain expenses she submitted from that tournament. Joint likewise lost most of the $147,000 she earned from a second-round showing at the 2024 US Open ahead of entering the University of Texas. The plaintiffs say Joint followed protocols and later turned professional in December.

The settlement was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. It contains injunctive relief that the plaintiffs say will benefit future generations of student-athletes across all sports by striking down restrictive prize-money rules that applied prior to enrollment.

“The proposed settlement is an extraordinary outcome for the Classes and the injunctive relief obtained will positively impact future generations of student-athletes,” the plaintiffs declared in a brief.

For college tennis specifically, the change ends a longstanding barrier for players navigating the transition from junior and professional circuits into collegiate competition. The agreement represents a notable revision to NCAA policy that affects how incoming student-athletes may manage earnings earned before they become enrolled.

When Russian bombs drove the family from Odesa in 2022, Mariia Vainshtein’s life narrowed to one urgent need: survival. Her mother, Anzhelika Kotlyantseva, remembers her first impression of the United States in a single word. “Safety.”

Kotlyantseva left her husband behind because men were forbidden from leaving Ukraine. “We left my husband and I didn’t know when I might see him again, or if I’d see him again,” says Kotlyanstseva, who was an elementary school teacher in Ukraine. “I left my house, and it took me four days to get here. Once I was here, I felt safety for me and my daughters.” The family traveled through Moldova, Romania and Turkey before arriving in the Mill Basin neighborhood of Brooklyn.

For 13-year-old Mariia, the invasion upended school and routine. She recalled asking a teacher about the possibility of war. “She said she didn’t think a war was going to start, because she knows history,” Vainshtein says. “I was scared for my life—like, what if a bomb is going to drop on my house?” Mariia says. “But I was also scared for my future, because I understood there wouldn’t be one in Ukraine after the war.”

Tennis, prescribed years earlier to help her focus her eyes, became a refuge in a new country where she initially found school and language barriers isolating. “It was very lonely here at first,” she says. “I was just hanging out with my mom and my aunt and their friends.” Faced with advice to return to Ukraine to learn English, Mariia responded, “That’s crazy. I can’t go back to Ukraine. There’s a war on.” Instead she gravitated to the Bronx, to the Cary Leeds Center and the Scholar Athlete Program run by New York Junior Tennis and Learning.

Cary Leeds provided free tennis and academic instruction at its 22-court facility and roughly 100 enrollees as of 2026. “I see how her thoughts change,” Mariia’s mother, Anzhelika, says. “They help kids to believe in themselves and grow.” Mariia credits the program and her coaches with improving both technique and purpose. “Before I just used to hit the ball, and that’s it,” she says. “No mental game behind it. Now I’m thinking about it more than I used to.”

Her coach, Rob Cizek, noted progress. “She’s a pretty stubborn player,” Cizek says. “She likes to take the ball early. When I met her, she didn’t put much thought into who she’s playing and how to make them uncomfortable. Now she’s developing other strokes, adding variety, adding some slice and spin to her second serve.”

A senior at James Madison High School, Vainshtein led the girls’ tennis team to its first Public School Athletic League title in 46 years and hopes to play in college next year. She also placed on a team that finished second in New York State’s We the People competition. “I’m really good with American history because everything is so connected and so straightforward,” she says. “It’s never changed. There’s just one constitution the whole time.” For Mariia’s mother, safety was the priority; Cary Leeds has helped turn survival into opportunity.

Two years after her first WTA singles title in Rabat, Peyton Stearns collected a second trophy much closer to home by winning the ATX Open. The former University of Texas standout had lost in the first round of her adopted home event in each of the last two years, but completed a goal she has pursued since the WTA 250 was added to the calendar in 2023.

In 2023 she won her first WTA main-draw match in Austin and reached the quarterfinals as a wild card less than a year after lifting the NCAA Division I national singles trophy. This week she snapped a three-match skid at the tournament by coming from a set down to beat Brit Francesca Jones in round one.

After that match Stearns admitted that she thought “it would be nice for a Longhorn to win this tournament, finally.

“So hopefully I’m the first,” she said.

Stearns won three of her five matches in three sets. In the final she saved a trio of set points in the opening set before closing out a 7-6(8), 7-5 victory over Taylor Townsend. Townsend was contesting her first tour-level singles final at the age of 29.

Townsend had earlier erased a 4-0 first-set deficit in the semifinals against Ashlyn Krueger. In the title match Townsend held two set points on return at 5-3, and after Stearns rallied to force a tiebreaker the left-hander left her third chance on the table at 8-7 after erasing Stearns’ 6-3 lead.

Stearns also survived tight early tests during the week, including saving match point in the first round against Linda Fruhvirtova as she accumulated wins despite not having advanced past a tour-level quarterfinal before this week. The final was the second straight all-American title match in Austin, following Jessica Pegula’s win over McCartney Kessler for the 2025 crown. Both home contenders will see meaningful ranking gains ahead of the Sunshine Double.