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RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-04-2019

(10-04-2019, 09:00 AM)eb388 Wrote:  
(10-04-2019, 08:08 AM)oldalum Wrote:  
(10-04-2019, 05:45 AM)eb388 Wrote:  Arbuthnott/Gordon won 6-4 over Hannah Zhao/Summer Dvorak of Duke
Interesting, Dvorak is a grad transfer from Vanderbilt where she played #6 singles and #3 doubles. Doesn't seem that common in tennis.

That's interesting. I guess they really needed her. They only have seven on the roster with her included. Looks like Maria Mateas, their freshman 1 from last year, appears to have gone pro.

Pretty sure no other fan base picks apart women's tennis transfers like we do, and I love us for it. The year before saw a couple bigger transfers, with Ida Jarlskog leaving Georgia Tech (where she made the NCAA All-Tournament Team) for Florida, but this past offseason was pretty quiet. Aside from Dvorak, the one who jumps out at me the most is Auburn's Jaeda Daniel (ranked #59) going to NC State. FYI, Bobby Knight of College Tennis Today keeps a spreadsheet on this on his website, which is a nice resource. https://www.collegetennistoday.com/other/transfers.html. A lot of moves at the back end of rosters there. The Pac-12 was a net importer, with Annette Goulak leaving Georgia for UCLA, Plobrung Plipuech leaving Kansas for Oregon (talk about a roster that'll take all the help it can get), and Kirsten Prelle leaving UTEP for Arizona, with Vera Markovic leaving Colorado for Maryland being the only outward transfer, but she didn't factor into the Buffs' season last year anyway. 

Mateas leaving is great news. Duke is going to be in the conversation every year now, it seems, so I'll take it! 

I think Arbuthnott/Gordon won their next round this morning, but I'm not positive. Looks like Gordon is having a rough start against Failla--she's on Court 5, and trails 5-1 in the first set, with Failla serving for it now.
Gordon breaks Failla to stay in the set, now down 2-5. Even if she loses the set, let's hope Gordon fights back here and recovers a little momentum moving into the second set.
Shucks. Gordon hits deciding point into the net, and Failla takes the first set 6-2. As a reminder of how dangerous Pepperdine can be, Failla is probably the #2 there after Lahey, and another Wave (Anastasia Iamachkine) played #6 last year (getting crushed by Emma Higuchi in the NCAA quarterfinals), but beat Cal's Rosenqvist in three sets in the first round here before defeating a top 50 player from Michigan to make the quarterfinals. Yes, it's on their home courts, but still--this is a dangerous team.
Gordon holds for 1-1 in the second, but she is having to work very hard for her points, while Failla has looked a bit sharper so far, and Failla took deciding point to stay on serve in the second, 2-1. This is a great test, though. I think Failla looks like a Top 10-caliber player, and a big jump from last season (when Failla played #3, and was trailing 3-6, 4-4 to Lampl when the match was abandoned at NCAAs). 

Rare to see a 5th year player in college tennis like Failla (she spent her first two years at USC, played a couple fall tournaments after transferring to Pepperdine for her junior year but otherwise sat out, and then played last year as an academic senior). She was a top 10 player coming out of high school, and was the centerpiece of USC's #4-ranked recruiting class the same year we landed Lord, Lampl, and Yee.
Gordon broken, but she breaks right back, and it's back on serve, with Failla up 3-2.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-04-2019

Still no idea on the St. Mary's Invitational, by the way, where Higuchi, Choy, Blake, and Mossmer are set to play this weekend. No draws on that tournament website, and nothing on the official St. Mary's site. 

(And Gordon got broken at love. Her serve wasn't great against Drummy yesterday, and it's not great so far today. And then Failla held at love to go up 6-2, 5-2. Just not Michaela's day.)
And Failla beats Gordon 6-2, 6-3. Looks like Arbuthnott is starting an added/consolation match on Court 1, and Madurawe is warming up on Court 5. Not sure about their opponents, though.
Shin warming up now on Court 3 against Duke's Margaryta Bilokin, a sophomore who played mostly 5 and 6 for Duke last year. With the players who played #1, #4, and #5 gone, Bilokin looks to play #3 for Duke this year, so that's a nice test for Shin, who is probably our #3 after Gordon and Arbuthnott.

Arbuthnott is playing FSU's Sasha Hill, a freshman from the UK. The score shows Hill as having taken the first set 6-1, but given that Arbuthnott changed the score to 3-0 after I saw her win two consecutive games, I'm pretty confident the identities are flipped, and Arbuthnott took the first set 6-1.

No idea who Madurawe is playing.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-04-2019

OK, found the St. Mary's Invitational draws on Cal's website: https://calbears.com/documents/2019/10/4//2019_SMC_Fall_Invite_Draws.pdf. Choy is the #1 seed, and has a bye into tomorrow's Round of 16. Freshman Angelica Blake is the #3 seed, and was scheduled to play Cal's Alexis Nelson today at noon. No Higuchi or Mossmer, which is curious. Maybe a nagging injury?

In doubles, Choy/Blake are the #2 seed, and were scheduled to play a pair from Wisconsin this morning at 8:30am, with the next round immediately following. 

Someone to watch out for in the singles draw is Maddie Pothoff of Santa Clara (seeded 2nd, ranked #76). But aside from Pothoff, I'd expect Choy and Blake to make deep runs here.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-05-2019

Yesterday, Choy/Blake lost their first match but won in the consolation bracket. 

In singles, Blake beat Cal’s Alexis Nelson 6-4, 6-2. More action today—just don’t know exactly when!

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-07-2019

So, after Gordon lost to Pepperdine's Failla, Stanford had more consolation matches to play throughout the weekend. Those went as follows:

* #30 Arbuthnott d. Sasha Hills (FSU) 6-1, 6-1
* #60 Shin d. Margaryta Bilokin (Duke) 6-3, 6-3
* Valentina Ivanova (Cal) d. #93 Madurawe, 6-4, 6-1
* #113 Elena Christofi (Georgia) d. #30 Arbuthnott, 6-3, 7-6
* #6 Gordon d. Anastasia Iamachkine (Pepperdine) 6-2, 6-0
* #60 Shin d. Elizabeth Goldsmith (USD) 6-1, 6-2
* #93 Madurawe d. Samantha Hampton (ASU) 5-7, 6-1, 6-4

In doubles, we saw the teams get mixed up, Arbuthnott partnering with Shin, Gordon partnering with Madurawe, and then Gordon with Shin, before they returned to their usual partners on Sunday. 

In Moraga, Saturday saw both Choy and Blake reach the semifinals, mostly with little difficulty. In the semifinal yesterday, Blake steamrolled a player from San Jose State, 6-2, 6-0, while Choy withdrew before the match due to injury and her opponent (UOP's Klara Kosan) received a walkover into the final. Kosan gave Blake a run for it, but Blake won her first collegiate title, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. 

A great weekend for Blake, no question. A collegiate title is always worth celebrating, even if she was only really pushed in the final, and even then didn't have much of a problem after shaking off the first set. 

A good tournament from Gordon, too. She went 3-1, with wins over #35 Drummy, Georgia's Lea Ma, and Pepperdine's Anastasia Iamachkine (who is unranked, but will be ranked very soon--she herself beat #24 Rosenqvist of Cal and #47 Pairone of Michigan this tournament), against just one loss--to #32 Failla (who was dominant until she ran into another Pepperdine buzzsaw, #14 Ashley Lahey, in the final). 

Shin did herself credit. She lost to #13 Marta Gonzalez of Georgia, but pushed her to three sets. She then got two wins in the consolation bracket, including a solid win over Duke's likely #3 singles player this season. Not great from Madurawe or Arbuthnott, but it's the first tournament of the year, so it's a mistake to draw too many conclusions. Good to see Gordon playing well, though, and since Shin will likely be playing up a couple spots this year, it's encouraging to see her be competitive as well. If Blake keeps playing like that, she may force herself into the singles lineup ahead of Madurawe or Choy, too. 

On that note, this is what I'm guessing we'll see once the dual match season starts in the new year, with the caveat that I'm only really confident about the first three singles lines, and 4-6 could be shuffled, and I wouldn't be shocked at all to see Blake in the lineup over Madurawe or Choy:

1. Gordon
2. Arbuthnott
3. Shin
4. Higuchi
5. Madurawe
6. Choy

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-14-2019

The ITA All-American Championships came and went in Tulsa without any Stanford women present (the men's team did go), and we still don't know why. But for the third straight tournament, Pepperdine's Ashley Lahey took the crown, this time beating UNC's Alexa Graham in the final. She's on quite the run of form, and while I'm bummed we don't appear to be playing Pepperdine this year (our schedule isn't out yet, but theirs is, and we're not on it), I don't relish the prospect of going up against them, either. 

So, the next time Stanford will be in action is the ITA Northwest Regional Championships, held this weekend on our very own campus, welcoming players from Cal, UW, Wazzu, and Oregon, in addition to a host of other schools on the west coast (Gonzaga, San Jose State, Santa Clara, St. Mary's, Fresno State, Cal Poly, UC Davis, USF, Portland, Portland State, UOP, Sac State, Eastern Washington, and Seattle). The singles finalists qualify for ITA Fall Nationals in November, and so does the doubles champion. 

Last year, Michaela Gordon won the singles tournament as the #2 seed, defeating Caroline Lampl in the final, sending both to Fall Nationals along with the impromptu doubles pairing of Niluka Madurawe and Kimberly Yee. From last year, we lose the #1 seed (UW's Stacey Fung), #3 (Melissa Lord), #8 (Cal's Olivia Hauger), and three #9 seeds (Carolina Lampl and Oregon's Shweta Sangwan and Daniela Nasser). We don't yet have the seeds for this year's tournament, but expect Gordon to be the top seed and the rest of our anticipated singles lineup to have a seed of one sort of another. 

While we don't have seeds or draws yet, we do have confirmed appearances and doubles teams. Interestingly, Gordon is paired with Janice Shin, while Emily Arbuthnott is paired with freshman Angelica Blake. While it's odd to see what's been a successful doubles team be broken up, it's consistent with past practice under Lele. We often see an older player paired with a younger one, so matching a senior (Arbuthnott) with a freshman (Blake) makes a lot of sense. Stanford loses two singles players from last year's team, but three of six doubles players, so there is a need to find some balance. Shin has played some doubles, but Lele preferred to pair Melissa Lord with Madurawe last year. Madurawe and Choy make up the final doubles pairing, as neither Emma Higuchi nor Nicole Mossmer is entered in the doubles tournament. I found that odd, since this is a time to try and develop whatever doubles chemistry you can, and while Emma Higuchi hasn't played much doubles for us since her freshman year (when she had good success pairing with Caroline Lampl), you'd still expect to see them out there. But then I looked at the singles entrants, and neither Higuchi nor Mossmer was there, either. Both are on the roster, so I'm assuming this is injury-related caution in both cases, but it's worrisome not knowing. 

We've got plenty of time before spring, so plenty of time to heal. But given the dearth of opportunities available to the 7th and 8th players in the lineup in match play, this would have been a useful time for Mossmer to get some collegiate match play under her belt. 

In other news, Wazzu's Michaela Bayerlova, ranked #27, isn't scheduled to appear, though several of her teammates are. But aside from Bayerlova and Higuchi, the likely seeds are intending to appear. 

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - martyup - 10-14-2019

Thank you for the detailed update CT.  You really are an asset to the Cardboard.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-17-2019

Thanks, marty! 

* The draws are up, and you can find them (and track results) here: https://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/TournamentHome/Tournament.aspx?T=236408#&&s=7Draws3

* Since the tournament is at Stanford, live video/scoring will be available for the Taube courts (but not the Taube South courts) here: http://streamingtennis.com/Cardinal/?DB_OEM_ID=30600

The draws:

Here are the seeds in singles, with ITA preseason ranking in parentheses: 

(1) Michaela Gordon (#6)
(2) Julia Rosenqvist (Cal, #24) 
(3) Emily Arbuthnott (#30)
(4) Haley Giavara (Cal) -- this is a bit of a surprise (I figured she'd be a 9), but this is a sign that the coaches think Giavara is Cal's #2 over Anna Bright
(5) Valentina Ivanov (Cal) -- another surprise; watch this space, as this cohort of Cal freshmen looks to make Cal a much more dangerous team than I would have expected coming into the year. 
(6) Anna Bright (Cal, #42) -- not surprising that she's a top 8 seed, but absolutely shocking that she's the fourth Cal player seeded
(7) Vanessa Wong (UW, #54)
(8) Janice Shin (#60)

(9) Angelica Blake (#8 newcomer)
(9) Sara Choy  (#87)
(9) Niluka Madurawe (#93)
(9) Klara Kosan (UOP)
(9) Erin Richardson (Cal, #10 newcomer)
(9) Natsuho Arakawa (UW)
(9) Mariia Kozyreva (St. Mary's, #68)
(9) Maddie Pothoff (Santa Clara, #76)

And here are the seeds in doubles:

(1) Rosenqvist/Ivanov (Cal)
(2) Arbuthnott/Blake
(3) Gordon/Shin
(4) Bright/Giavara (Cal)
(5) Arakawa/Wong (UW)
(5) Gevargiz/Pothoff (Santa Clara)
(5) Kozyreva/McIntyre (St. Mary's)
(5) Dunk/Richardson (Cal)

The top 4 seeds have a bye into Saturday morning's second round. Choy/Madurawe are unseeded.

Schedule

Play starts tomorrow, with some doubles starting at around 8:30am, with singles following at 10:00am.  Here's what tomorrow's schedule looks like: 

9:15am: Choy/Madurawe vs. Ellis/Hummel (Fresno State)

10:00am: (1) Gordon vs. Nikita Pradeep (UC Davis)
11:30am: (9) Blake vs. Allison Mulville (Oregon)
12:30pm: (9) Choy vs. Chiho Mushika (USF)
1:00pm: Taylor Lallas (the lone walk-on on our team) vs. Nina Nikitovic (Portland State)
2:00pm: (3) Arbuthnott vs. Jane Ellis (Fresno State)
3:00pm: (8) Shin vs. Ella Husrefovic (Fresno State)
3:00pm: (9) Madurawe vs. Jamie Schroer (Santa Clara)

Second round singles matches will start on a rolling basis, with the first set of matches starting at 3:30 and the last set starting at 6:30. 

Quick Analysis

* This is on campus, so head on down to Taube if you're free at all this weekend, particularly from Saturday afternoon on once we're into the later rounds.

* This is a tournament with a wide range of quality, so don't expect many early round upsets. If a top 8 seed doesn't reach at least the Round of 16, it should count as a major upset. Starting in the Round of 16, though, there should be some great tennis, once the seeds start playing each other.

* The committee that put these seeds together basically thinks that Cal every bit the team that Stanford is, if not better. Stloukalova, who played a lot of #3 for Cal last year, isn't even seeded, while four Cal players (including two freshmen) are top 8 seeds, and another Cal freshman is a 9 seed. Bright is the #42 player in the preseason rankings, and the tournament thinks she's their fourth-best player. Yikes. Yes, we have six seeded players overall, and our #1 and #2 players are seeded higher than theirs, but their #3 and #4 are seeded higher than ours. You never really know who you have until they start playing matches, of course, but as for right now, the coaches who put the seeds together think the Cal freshmen are legit. And that Cal has an edge in doubles, with three seeded pairs to our two. We knew we wouldn't be quite as good as last year after losing Lord and Lampl (and Yee in doubles), but let's see how our players respond. 

* That said, keep in mind that Higuchi would be seeded if she were playing (albeit as a #9), so our depth, as always, is our greatest strength.

* Wong is the other top 8 seed in Gordon's quarter, but Richardson may be the more dangerous player, as the Cal freshman is one of the top 10 newcomers. But Gordon should expect to emerge from her quarter. 

* I'm eager to see the Giavara-Blake matchup in the Round of 16, assuming both freshmen get there. The ITA ranked Blake as the #8 newcomer and omitted Giavara from the list, and Blake was more highly-regarded as a recruit, but the seeding committee here gave Giavara the edge. That match (if it happens) would be Saturday at 1:30pm

* Arbuthnott is in line to get Kozyreva in the Round of 16, and the Gael has proven to be a pretty tough out, so that should be a good match. The quarterfinal would be Cal's Anna Bright, which would've struck me as a preview of the regular season #2 line, but that may no longer be the case with Cal's freshman class.

* Shin's Round of 16 matchup is slated to be Santa Clara's Maddie Pothoff, and that's another great matchup of comparably ranked players. It's these kinds of matches that Shin needs to win to show us what kind of season we can expect. 

* Madurawe gets Cal's Rosenqvist in the Round of 16 (again, assuming they both get there), and while Rosenqvist clearly has the edge, Madurawe is a gritty player that could absolutely pull off the upset. 

* Another likely Cal-Stanford matchup in the Round of 16, with Choy slated to play freshman Valentina Ivanov. 

Basically, if you hate Cal, and you love Stanford, then get thee to Taube on Saturday at 1:30pm, because three different Cal-Stanford matchups will start then, though we're not necessarily favored in any of them (three players expected to play in the back half of our lineup against Cal's top three).

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - oldalum - 10-17-2019

thanks as always for the detailed analysis. 
I'd suggest moving the ITA regionals to its own new thread, which I suspect a moderator would need to do? There will probably be plenty more posts to it over the weekend.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-17-2019

(10-17-2019, 10:04 AM)oldalum Wrote:  thanks as always for the detailed analysis. 
I'd suggest moving the ITA regionals to its own new thread, which I suspect a moderator would need to do? There will probably be plenty more posts to it over the weekend.

I can just start a new thread with my last post. Then we can keep this thread focused on the overall fall season and outlook for the spring, rather than specific matches.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - martyup - 10-17-2019

(10-17-2019, 12:08 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote:  
(10-17-2019, 10:04 AM)oldalum Wrote:  thanks as always for the detailed analysis. 
I'd suggest moving the ITA regionals to its own new thread, which I suspect a moderator would need to do? There will probably be plenty more posts to it over the weekend.

I can just start a new thread with my last post. Then we can keep this thread focused on the overall fall season and outlook for the spring, rather than specific matches.

That sounds like a good plan.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-22-2019

With Stanford winning both the singles and doubles championships at Northwest Regionals, that means that we'll see three Stanford players at the ITA Fall National Championships--Michaela Gordon in singles and Emily Arbuthnott and Angelica Blake in doubles. 

Fall Nationals takes place November 7-10 in Newport Beach, CA. The same weekend, Stanford will also travel to the San Diego State Fall Classic, so presumably we'll see Janice Shin, Sara Choy, and Niluka Madurawe at that tournament (as well as Emma Higuchi and Nicole Mossmer, if they're healthy). 

Gordon's third straight Northwest Regional championship is something that hasn't been done by anyone that I can remember. Nicole Gibbs won this tournament just once. Kristie Ahn won it twice, and not consecutively. (I don't know that there's never been a three-peat by one player, so I'm hedging.) I'm hopeful that this marks the start of a dominant regular season for her, and for her to add some postseason individual success to her resume.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-23-2019

Another note: Angelica Blake has now won a collegiate singles title and a doubles title, and she's been a student for all of a month. I don't know where Lele will slot her in the lineup, but the following lineup intrigues me: 

1. Gordon
2. Arbuthnott
3. Blake
4. Shin
5. Higuchi
6. Madurawe 

I'm tempted to have Higuchi play #6, but probably better to let her start the season at 5 and see how it goes. I'd like the flexibility to play her either at 5 or 6 depending on the matchup, since we know she struggles with taller players and big hitters. But I'm very optimistic about Blake, and playing Shin at 4 instead of 3 makes me feel a bit more relieved. And between Madurawe and Choy, I like the idea of playing Madurawe more, but it's something of a coin flip until we see more about their current level. And then in doubles, we're probably looking at this:

1. Arbuthnott/Blake
2. Gordon/Shin
3. Choy/Madurawe

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - oldalum - 10-23-2019

I like that lineup. Blake was the unknown but she is becoming more known and I'm feeling a little better overall.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-25-2019

(10-23-2019, 08:26 AM)oldalum Wrote:  I like that lineup. Blake was the unknown but she is becoming more known and I'm feeling a little better overall.

My goodness, the way the ball flew off her racket in doubles! I would have loved to see her play Giavara in the Round of 16, but if she couldn't go, she couldn't go. Must have been a 24-hour bug or something, since she looked pretty darn good in doubles. 

I'm excited to see her in more tournaments. She won't play singles at Fall Nationals, of course, but perhaps there's a way to get some added matches in anyway, since it's a long time until the January tournaments we usually play (the Freeman Memorial in Las Vegas and the NCTC in SoCal). 

And even if that's not the lineup, we're looking like a team that isn't as good as last year's team (not shockingly), and I'd favor teams like UNC and Pepperdine over us, but not by a ton, and I'd favor us over teams like UCLA and Cal, but by less than last year. We're still a Top 10 team, and once you get in the tournament, you never know. We've got a long way to go before NCAAs start, and if there's anything we know about Lele, it's getting consistent improvement over the course of the year on the way to peaking at NCAAs. Each team is a new animal, after all. How could we have known in the fall of 2015 that freshmen Melissa Lord and Caroline Lampl would be unbeatable at #5 and #6, and would make the NCAA All-Tournament team at those spots? I'm trying to be realistic about our chances, but then again, if there's any team on campus that continuously rewards an overly optimistic outlook, it's this one.
It's also good to keep this particular team's success in mind. They have won two straight national championships. They've won three in a row just twice before, from 2004-06 and as part of an insane six-year title streak from 1986 to 1991. On one hand, every player on the roster, save the freshmen of course, has won a national title. On the other, perhaps it's OK if they're not quite as good this year as last year.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-31-2019

Well, it looks like the fall season won't quite be over after Fall Nationals, at least for Michaela Gordon: https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-current/national/team-usa-names-2019-master-u-squad-for-repeat-title-bid-.html. 

She's a part of Team USA for the International Collegiate Team Competition (like a Fed/Davis/Ryder Cup for collegiate tennis, apparently), which takes place in Grenoble, France, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1. From what I can tell, she's the first Stanford woman to be selected for this event for Team USA (who started going to it in 2008). Team USA has won 9 times in 12 outings (though the tournament has been held 14 times). Also on the team is UCLA senior Jada Hart and UNC senior Alexa Graham. Three men join the team as well, including our own Alexandre Rotsaert, Illinois senior Aleks Kovacevic, and UCLA junior Keegan Smith. 

Also in the tournament are Belgium, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and Italy. Perhaps we'll see Arbuthnott named to Team GB (though she wasn't last year)? We could see some familiar names on some of those other teams, like WSU's Michaela Bayerlova for Germany, or Texas's Bianca and Anna Turati playing for Italy. 

The format is two women's singles matches, two men's singles matches, a women's doubles match, a men's doubles match, and a mixed doubles match. The first to four matches wins, though they usually play it out until the final itself, apparently.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 10-31-2019

In the most recent episode of "Beyond the Baseline," the podcast from SI's Jon Wertheim, there's a great discussion of the state of college tennis with Geoff McDonald, former player and current head coach of Vanderbilt's women's team. We don't get much college tennis analysis from major media outlets, so it's worth a listen. 

https://www.si.com/tennis/2019/10/31/beyond-the-baseline-podcast-geoff-macdonald-vanderbilt-coach-college-tennis

No specific mention of Stanford (except in setting the mood for his recruitment of Astra Sharma, which started in the aftermath of his frustration of losing a major recruit to Stanford), but many other topics we've all discussed on here, like increasing international presence on rosters. (McDonald thinks some cultural exchange within the team is great, but thinks it's gone too far. He's not a fan of quotas to fix the issue; rather, he'd prefer greater investment in junior tennis (he's frustrated with the USTA's relative lack of support) to expand the number of top Americans rather than put a cap on the number of spots can go to internationals, so the balance is restored competitively rather than artificially.)

That recruit he lost to Stanford? I'm pretty sure that's Taylor Davidson, whose final college decision was between Vanderbilt and Stanford, and she was a year ahead of Sharma, so it makes sense. Davidson never achieved the individual success as some of the greats here in recent years (like Nicole Gibbs, Amber Liu, and Laura Granville, each a 2x NCAA singles champion), but given her pivotal roles in clinching matches on the road to that 2016 title, she's an absolute all-timer.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 11-14-2019

Fall Season Wrap-Up Post

Coming into the fall season, we had six singles players ranked, and while we lost two absolute legends to graduation last season as well as another doubles mainstay, things looked pretty bright. I had four fundamental questions:

1. Does it look like Michaela Gordon can more reliably hold down the #1 spot?
2. How will Arbuthnott (last year's #4) and Shin (last year's #5) deal with playing higher in the lineup, perhaps at #2 and #3? 
3. Where, if at all, will we see the freshmen--Angelica Blake and Nicole Mossmer--play in the singles lineup? If they play, who gets left out?
4. How do our chief rivals, both in the Pac-12 and around the country, look?

As for the first question, I'm not sure we yet know how much Michaela has improved, but I certainly didn't see anything to suggest she'd do worse at #1 than she did last year, so I'm cautiously optimistic on this one. (She won her third straight Northwest Regionals (good!), and yet again didn't blow us away at national singles competitions (meh), so the jury is still out here.) 

As for the second question, that remains a very live concern. Arbuthnott doesn't look like a #2 on a national championship caliber team. Now, she might grow into the role, but I remain concerned. Shin is more of a mixed bag with her fall results, and while I don't think she's a #3, I'd feel very good about her at #4. 

As for the third question, Angelica Blake seems like the real deal. She partnered successfully with Arbuthnott in doubles, winning Northwest Regionals, and her singles play in that tournament looked just as sharp, until she retired from a match due to illness. She won her own trophy in singles at the St. Mary's Invitational, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see her at #3 above Shin, though perhaps #4 or #5 is more likely to start the season. Nicole Mossmer is still an unknown, as she only competed at this last invitational tournament, but she booked a ranked win, suggesting we'll be fine if she's needed at the back end of the lineup.

Not sure where Emma Higuchi has been this fall, but she didn't play a bit (explaining her rankings drop below). If it was an injury that she'll recover from in time for the spring, then she's in the lineup. You just can't drop that level of experience and dominance at #6 from the lineup. Whether she plays #5 or #6 is a different question, but if she's healthy, she plays. With that in mind, here's my guess at a lineup that probably overestimates where Blake will play, but I like it:

1. Gordon
2. Arbuthnott
3. Blake
4. Shin
5. Higuchi
6. Madurawe or Choy

One of our blue chip sophomores will likely have to sit out most matches to make room for Blake in the lineup, but such is life. If Higuchi's injury situation lingers, however, then it's Madurawe and Choy in some order, and our outlook is substantially the same. This might be the lineup we start with, but we also started with Higuchi playing at #4 last season before she eventually settled back into #6, where she's always been most dominant. I wouldn't be shocked if we see Higuchi end up at #6 for most of the year. 

Rest of the Conference and Country:

In the Pac-12, UCLA looks scary, scoring the top 3 seeds at the recent ITA Fall Nationals, with multiple other players looking dangerous. I had pegged USC as the #3 team in the conference, with Cal as a close #4, but after the fall, I'll swap those two teams based on how good the Cal freshmen looked. As it stands right now, I think UCLA is the favorite to win the conference title (we might win a close one in the regular season, since we get them at home, but on neutral courts in Ojai?), with Stanford second, Cal third, and USC fourth. 

As for the rest of the country, this is UNC's time to shine. They have four players in the top 20 of the ITA rankings, their #3 player just won Fall Nationals, and they look dangerous in doubles, too. They're good, and unlike us, they didn't lose anyone from last year, though with their top 3 all being seniors, this could be UNC's last, best chance for a few years. Georgia is likely to be dangerous as well, as they add freshman Lea Ma to a lineup anchored by Katarina Jokic. Duke looks as solid as they did last year, and Pepperdine is as dangerous as ever, with Ashley Lahey plowing through the field of every tournament she entered. 

That doesn't mean we won't still be a top 8 or 16 seed (recall that top 16 seeds host two rounds of NCAAs, while the top 8 seeds (if they advance) host a third), but that expecting another repeat championship may not be reasonable. Could happen! Nobody gets better over the course of the regular season than this team does. But right now, it seems likely that this team takes a slight step back this year.
New Rankings:

The final ITA singles and doubles rankings are out, and here's where we stand now, with the previous ranking in parentheses:

#7 Gordon (#6)
#49 Shin (#60)

NR Arbuthnott (#30)  
NR Choy (#87)
NR Madurawe (#93)
NR Blake (NR, #5 newcomer)
NR Higuchi (#78)

And in doubles, we saw reshuffled lineups, so preseason #10 Arbuthnott/Gordon isn't a thing anymore, but here's how things stand now:

#33 Arbuthnott/Blake
#58 Arbuthnott/Gordon

First thought: my goodness, what a rankings hit that is. Arbuthnott drops at least 95 spots, from #30 to out of the rankings entirely, but then again, what did she do in the fall to warrant staying ranked? She went 4-3 in singles, beating four middling players, and losing (albeit in all close matches) to two good players--Kozyreva from St. Mary's and Colling from USD--and Eleni Christofi, who will probably play #5 singles for Georgia this year, if she keeps her spot in the lineup with an infusion of impressive freshmen. What great wins did anyone else (other than Gordon or Shin) have? So, we can't say it's undeserved. And skipping All-Americans (for some as-yet-unknown reason) definitely hurt our players' chances to get some good wins under their belts, not just for these rankings, but to help qualify for individual NCAA tournaments in the spring. But it's another indicator that we're not as good as we have been in the past. Meanwhile, Georgia has six singles players ranked (and Christofi isn't one of them). UCLA has five. Many others, including Cal, UNC, and Pepperdine, have four. Even USC has three! I am not used to this.  

Here are all the Pac-12 players in the new singles rankings:

6. Abigail Forbes (Fr., UCLA)
7. Michaela Gordon (Jr., Stanford)
9. Jada Hart (Sr., UCLA)
14. Elysia Bolton (So., UCLA)
20. Valentina Ivanov (Fr., Cal)
21. Haley Giavara (Fr., Cal)
41. Ilze Hattingh (Sr., ASU)
45. Julia Rosenqvist (Jr., Cal)
49. Janice Shin (Jr., Stanford)
60. Angela Kulikov (Sr., USC)
68. Sydney Van Alphen (Sr., USC)
70. Danielle Willson (So., USC)
T88. Katarina Kopcalic (Sr., UW)
99. Annette Goulak (So., UCLA) (a transfer from Georgia)
100. Anna Bright (Jr., Cal)
102. Vanessa Wong (Jr., UW)
T103. Melisa Ates (Sr., WSU)
108. Alexandra Vagramov (Fr., UCLA)

UCLA, Cal, and USC each have more ranked singles players than we do, and UW equaled us. Yes, all the usual caveats should apply--this is a reflection of our reduced fall schedule, we improve in the spring more than most teams do, and we tend to play better in a team environment than individually, etc.--but it should still be a wake-up call. 

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 11-14-2019

Since it's Signing Week in college tennis, it's a good time to check around the conference and country and see how teams are doing. While Stanford looks set to replace Arbuthnott and Higuchi with blue chip India Houghton (currently the #4 recruit nationally) and Ana Geller (Axel's little sister, who has been ranked as high as the #46 junior player in the world), things look comparatively quiet around the rest of the Pac-12.

Just one other blue chip recruit so far, and that's Vanessa Ong (usually ranked in the 5-10 range) to UCLA. USC and UW each add a 5-star player, and there are no other reported commitments or signings so far. 

Nationally, 6 blue chip girls remain uncommitted, though one of those is Walnut Creek's Katie Volynets, the consensus #1 player who has long been figured to go pro.  The blue chips are fairly spread around, with only UNC, Harvard, Michigan, and Tennessee scoring two of them (and aside from UNC, those count as surprises). At a conference level, the ACC has 7 blue chips, the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and Ivy League each have 3, and the Pac-12 and WCC each have 2. 

National powers with no blue chips yet include Georgia and Duke. South Carolina, which surprised last year, also doesn't have any. 

UCLA only loses one player anyway (though it's a big one in Jada Hart), so it makes sense that they're just taking one. USC loses a few players (including Kulikov and Van Alphen) this year, so expect another name or two from them. This should be a quiet recruiting year from Cal, though, since Rosenqvist and Bright will be seniors next year, and they have that trio of major contributors that are freshmen this year in Giavara, Ivanov, and Richardson.

RE: Women's Tennis: Fall Season - ColoradoTree - 12-03-2019

Quote:Well, it looks like the fall season won't quite be over after Fall Nationals, at least for Michaela Gordon: https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-curren...-bid-.html. 

She's a part of Team USA for the International Collegiate Team Competition (like a Fed/Davis/Ryder Cup for collegiate tennis, apparently), which takes place in Grenoble, France, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1. From what I can tell, she's the first Stanford woman to be selected for this event for Team USA (who started going to it in 2008). Team USA has won 9 times in 12 outings (though the tournament has been held 14 times). Also on the team is UCLA senior Jada Hart and UNC senior Alexa Graham. Three men join the team as well, including our own Alexandre Rotsaert, Illinois senior Aleks Kovacevic, and UCLA junior Keegan Smith. 

Also in the tournament are Belgium, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and Italy. Perhaps we'll see Arbuthnott named to Team GB (though she wasn't last year)? We could see some familiar names on some of those other teams, like WSU's Michaela Bayerlova for Germany, or Texas's Bianca and Anna Turati playing for Italy. 

The format is two women's singles matches, two men's singles matches, a women's doubles match, a men's doubles match, and a mixed doubles match. The first to four matches wins, though they usually play it out until the final itself, apparently.


Team USA, led by our own Michaela Gordon, won the 2019 edition of the weirdly-named Master'U BNP Paribas championship (sort of a collegiate Davis Cup and Fed Cup mixed together) with a 4-1 win over Great Britain, which was led by our own Emily Arbuthnott.  

In the championship, Gordon beat Arbuthnott 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 in the women's #1 singles match, which gave Team USA a 2-1 lead. Team USA then won the men's #1 singles match and the men's doubles to complete the 4-1 win, leaving the women's doubles and the mixed doubles unplayed. 

Gordon played #1 singles all week, which is notable, given that the other women on the team were #8 Alexa Graham of UNC and #9 Jada Hart of UCLA. Gordon beat France's Margaux Orance in the opener, 6-3, 6-4, lost to Ireland's Julie Byrne 6-2, 7-6, and beat Arbuthnott in the final. (Ireland's Byrne is a senior at Northwestern, where she played primarily #2 singles last year, but is currently unranked this year.) Arbuthnott won her matches against Belgium and Italy, losing only to Gordon. I believe she also won a couple of doubles matches based on Twitter, but the official tournament website is down, so I can't confirm. 

But good news for Arbuthnott that she played well all week (and that she played well enough to push Michaela to a third, though Michaela ended it quickly at that point), and good news for Michaela to have earned the #1 spot on that team over two comparable players (presumably with some practice match wins) and to take home a trophy.

(FYI, Stanford's Alexandre Rotsaert played for Team USA as well, winning his match at #2 singles and as part of a mixed doubles pair with Jada Hart against Ireland. He dropped a close match as part of the men's doubles team vs. France, and he didn't play against Great Britain.)