Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - Printable Version
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RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - Lorcan - 03-06-2022
Yeah, Ma did end up winning, I'll edit my post since the images didn't come through. Hang on.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - TheFarm07 - 03-07-2022
ColoradoTree, with different results coming out of our two recent marquee matchups, a 5-2 win against defending champions Texas and a 1-4 loss to Pepperdine, has your assessment of the team change much? Are you more or less confident about our chances this season? Or has it not really moved the needle too much?
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 03-09-2022
(03-07-2022, 07:11 AM)TheFarm07 Wrote: ColoradoTree, with different results coming out of our two recent marquee matchups, a 5-2 win against defending champions Texas and a 1-4 loss to Pepperdine, has your assessment of the team change much? Are you more or less confident about our chances this season? Or has it not really moved the needle too much?
Hmmm. Great question. I still think the general sense of "young team, never know, but has the talent to win it all if they put it all together" is right. We've played three really good teams so far this year and gone 1-2, with the win at home and the two losses on the road. How we've won/lost those matches can tell us useful info:
Doubles:
Overall, we won a tight doubles point at UVA, but got smoked vs. Texas and at Pepperdine.
1. Blake/Ma won 7-6 at UVA, led 5-3 vs. UT when the point was clinched, and trailed 2-5 at Pepperdine
2. Yepifanova/Xu lost 7-5 at UVA, lost 6-2 vs. UT, and lost 6-3 at Pepperdine.
3. Geller/Madurawe won 7-5 at UVA, lost 6-1 vs. UT, and lost 6-3 at Pepperdine.
So, we have a legit #1 pairing in Blake/Ma that can win us some matches, but we need better play from the other two spots if we're going to get doubles points against better teams.
Singles:
1. Ma lost 2-6, 7-6, 4-6 to defending national singles champion Emma Navarro, beat #4 Peyton Stearns 7-6, 2-6, 6-2, and beat #23 Taisiya Pachkaleva 6-2, 6-2.
2. Yepifanova lost to #90 Elaine Chervinsky 1-6, 6-3, 5-7 in a match where she was up a break late in the third, she beat #40 Kylie Collins 2-6, 7-6, 6-4, and she lost to #12 Lisa Zaar 2-6, 4-6.
3. Blake lost to #29 Natasha Subhash 6-7, 1-6, she beat Charlotte Chavatipon 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, and she lost to #88 Janice Tjen 5-7, 1-6. A worrying habit of close first sets, but when she loses them, the air goes out of her tires.
4. Geller lost to UVA's Munera 2-6, 6-4, 1-6 in an unacceptable loss; Houghton replaced her vs. Texas and lost to Zeynalova 3-6, 4-6, and she looked destined for a third set vs. Pepperdine, "leading" 6-4, 2-5.
5. Xu rolled over Amber O'Dell 6-3, 6-2, she took care of Ovrootsky 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, and she was locked in a close one with #45 Victoria Flores, having dropped the first in a tiebreaker but leading the second up a break at 2-1.
6. Choy struggled but won over UVA 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, she steamrolled #83 Malaika Rapolu 6-2, 6-0, and she got steamrolled herself by Anastasia Iamachkine, 2-6, 1-6.
So, the lessons? Ma is an ace, and she has a chance to win every single match she plays, no matter how good the opponent is. Yepifanova has struggled to finish, and that cost us big-time against UVA. Hopefully she learns from that and finishes better like she did against Texas. She showed a little more fight in the second set against Pepperdine, but it just wasn't enough. Blake fought hard but faded badly in the second two out of these three, so that's worrying. She did show some nice finishing and fight against Texas, but she had that 6-1 first set already banked. The #4 line is clearly a weak spot for us, and I wouldn't be surprised if Xu overtakes Houghton before long, but Houghton was a rare bright spot against Pepperdine, so if she's taking time to grow into the role but finally starting to become the player I expected her to be out of high school (the #2 recruit nationally), then I want her playing, and maybe Lele sticking with her at #4 gives her the confidence she needs. (No idea what happened to Geller's form.) At 5, Xu has been everything we've needed, and I'm excited for her future. At 6, Choy has been far more uneven than I would've expected for someone who played very well last year, mostly at #4, where she almost beat Lisa Zaar (the player who just handled Yepifanova) twice, the first time losing in a third-set tiebreaker that would've won us the match, and she was just starting her third set in NCAAs when Pepperdine clinched the match.
We need to do better, no question. We're not playing well enough right now. But more than maybe every other team in the country, this team grows a ton from beginning to end. A few years back, we lost 7-0 to Vanderbilt in Nashville early in the season and later beat them 4-3 in the national championship match. Lele maximizes her time with these players and gets more improvement than other coaches do, so I certainly expect us to be better come NCAAs.
Ma has been every bit who we thought she'd be, and she seems locked in. Yepifanova, Blake, and Geller haven't yet. Xu has been promising, but Choy has struggled, even dropping that match to Oregon in a shock. I'd be curious to see what our lineup looks like in a couple weeks at home to Colorado and Utah. Those matches shouldn't be overly competitive (though Utah will be closer for sure), so if Lele wants to make a lineup change before UCSB and the L.A. schools come to town the following week, the CU/Utah matches are the time to do it.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 03-09-2022
New rankings just dropped, and Stanford climbs from #25 to #21. This is going to continue to be an issue, as we're a top 10 team right now, with potential to be more, but we don't have the resume to prove it.
Teams on our schedule:
6. Pepperdine (L)
8. Texas (W)
10. Cal
13. UVA (L)
14. UCLA
17. UW
20. USC
21. Stanford
25. UCSB
29. Utah
30. ASU
50. Oregon
51. Arizona
65. Arkansas
In singles:
5. Emma Navarro, UVA
6. Eryn Cayetano, USC
7. Peyton Stearns, UT
11. Connie Ma (up from 18)
14. Alexandra Yepifanova (up from 17)
18. Shiori Fukuda, Pepperdine
22. Lisa Zaar, Pepp
26. Natasha Subhash, UVA
29. Salma Ewing, USC
38. Kylie Collins, UT
39. Taisiya Pachkaleva, Pepp
42. Abigail Forbes, UCLA
48. Victoria Flores, Pepp
50. Elaine Chervinsky, UVA
53. Jessica Alsola, Cal
60. Snow Han, USC
63. Mariia Kozyreva, St. Mary's
69. Elysia Bolton, UCLA
86. Valencia Xu (down from 65)
88. Janice Tjen, Pepp
91. Shakhnoza Khatamova, UCSB
92. Fernanda Labrana, UT
95. Malaika Rapolu, UT
97. Linda Huang, Utah
98. Nikki Redelijk, Pepp
103. Haley Giavara, Cal
106. Sabina Zeynalova, UT
107. Katja Wiersholm, Cal
109. Savannah Broadus, Pepp
115. Kimmi Hance, UCLA
And in doubles:
7. Blake/Ma (up from 21)
9. Broadus/Tjen, Pepp
11. Navarro/O'Dell, UVA
14. Flores/Zaar, Pepp
23. Forbes/Catanzarite, UCLA
26. Collard/Shaikh, UVA
28. Cross/Rice, Arkansas
29. Ewing/Han, USC
33. Bolton/Wagle, UCLA
37. Giavara/Ivanov, Cal
40. Flores/Tjen, Pepp
44. Harris/Kozyreva, SMC
46. Alsola/Richardson, Cal
49. Cayetano/Piper, USC
50. Chavatipon/Collins, UT
51. Collard/Navarro, UVA
54. Dush/Goncharova, Utah
56. Spaka/Turkovic, ASU
61. Honer/Reuter, UCSB
T64. Ong/Wagle, UCLA
66. Khatamova/Volodko, UCSB
73. Munera/O'Dell, UVA
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 03-16-2022
New ITA team rankings out this morning:
6. Texas (W) (up 2)
8. Pepperdine (L) (down 2)
11. Virginia (L) (up 2)
13. UCLA (up 1)
14. Cal (down 4)
18. USC (up 2)
19. Washington (down 2)
24. Stanford (down 3)
25. ASU (up 5)
30. UCSB
32. Utah (down 3)
50. Arizona (up 1)
53. Oregon (down 3)
***
Last weekend with those teams:
* Stanford, Cal, Oregon, and UVA were all idle
* UW beat both mountain schools handily; Utah beat WSU 4-3 in Pullman but WSU beat CU 4-2.
* Utah beat WSU 4-3 but lost to UW 4-0
* Both L.A. schools beat both Arizona schools; UA also lost at LMU before beating a couple of bad teams at home yesterday.
* Out of the Pac-12, Texas rolled over #34 Texas Tech and TCU and Pepperdine beat #57 Princeton and #58 BYU with ease.
**
Pac-12 standings:
T1. #19 Washington (13-4, 4-0)
T1. #13 UCLA (8-3, 4-0)
T3. #24 Stanford (7-2, 1-0)
T3. #14 Cal (7-5, 1-0)
5. #18 USC (10-7, 3-1)
6. #32 Utah (13-3, 2-2)
T7. #50 Arizona (10-6, 1-3)
T7. #25 Arizona State (8-5, 1-3)
T7. WSU (5-9, 1-3)
10. #53 Oregon (8-4, 0-2)
11. Colorado (5-7, 0-4)
This weekend sees the mountain schools visit Stanford/Cal, USC in Malibu to play Pepperdine, UCLA idle this weekend but kicking off a NorCal road trip at USF this Monday before visiting St. Mary's midweek and Cal/Stanford next weekend, the Arizona schools visit Oregon, UW is idle, and WSU plays at Gonzaga.
Stanford still controls its Pac-12 destiny, of course, and they're lucky to get USC/UCLA at Taube. UW, ASU, and Cal matches are on the road in April.
Meanwhile, the new USTA poll is out, and it's a much more optimistic view of Stanford:
5. Texas
8. Pepperdine
9. Virginia
11. Stanford
13. Cal
17. UCLA
19. Washington
23. USC
UCSB and ASU in the "others receiving votes" section.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - Sam Leopold - 03-16-2022
In honor of our esteemed former conference commissioner, I propose that we officially dub the trophy awarded to the women's tennis national champion, the "Larry Scott Cup."
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - BostonCard - 03-18-2022
Looks like we beat Colorado 6-1 (we won, but they let #4 (Houghton) play a tiebreak set, which she lost. I would imagine that this goes down as a bit of a disappointment and that we should have won 7-0, but I’ll leave the analysis to ColoradoTree.
BC
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 03-20-2022
(03-18-2022, 06:18 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Looks like we beat Colorado 6-1 (we won, but they let #4 (Houghton) play a tiebreak set, which she lost. I would imagine that this goes down as a bit of a disappointment and that we should have won 7-0, but I’ll leave the analysis to ColoradoTree.
BC
Yeah, I mean, losing to Forster is inexcusable. Should be nowhere near Houghton's level. Geller beat her 6-1, 6-0 last year at the #3 line. If this sort of thing keeps happening, Lele is going to field some calls from the ITA about playing Houghton above Xu and Choy. Houghton dropped the second 6-1!!! I didn't watch because of work commitments, but the only acceptable explanation is that she was injured in a way that really impacted her mobility but she wasn't hurt enough to retire. We'll see, since there's another match coming up in a few hours against a much better team.
Everything else about the CU win was fine, though in singles I'm only really content with how Ma, Blake, and Xu did. Yepifanova shouldn't have let the first set be as tight as it was, but at least she turned on the jets and dominated from there on out. Choy had trouble finishing, and that's becoming more of a theme. I don't know why her form has dipped, but it's concerning. She should be crushing these players by Higuchi-level margins--steady servings of bagels and breadsticks--and she's just not. And we know Choy is good enough to do it!
Stanford is back on court today at 12:00pm PT hosting #32 Utah, who has had a surprisingly good season so far, with wins over some middle-of-the-road Power 5 conference teams and a couple of Pac-12 wins under their belt, including a road win over WSU and a home upset over USC as the crown jewel of their season so far.
That said, they just got crushed by Cal, 7-0. In doubles, Cal's #1 and #3 teams won quickly, making the 3-3 score on Court 2 irrelevant. Cal got quick and dominating wins from Giavara at 1, Alsola at 2, Wiersholm at 3, and Richardson at 6 to clinch the match. Rosenqvist dropped her first set on Court 4, but then won the second 6-1 and cruised in the match tiebreaker. And Viller Moeller won in straight sets on Court 5, but it was more competitive at 7-5, 6-3. (Cal's Valentina Ivanov didn't play--not sure why.)
Utah is a good deal better than Colorado, but they're still be a good deal worse than us. How that translates to the scoreline is another matter, especially since Goncharova at 4 took a set off Cal's Rosenqvist, and Court 4 has been a rough spot for us so far this year. But we should win the match handily, and it would be nice to see some fire out of some players who've been struggling.
Official video link for the match: https://gostanford.com/sports/2022/3/17/womens-tennis-live-video-stats.aspx
What worked last time: https://web.playsight.com/live/stanford-university-tennis/101
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - Spiny_Norman - 03-20-2022
Stanford takes the doubles point vs. Utah and is dominating in singles.
Ma leads 6-0
Yepifanova leads 6-0
Blake leads 5-1
Houghton leads 5-1
Xu leads 5-1
Choy leads 5-1
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - BostonCard - 03-20-2022
Stanford is up 2-0, but I have no idea who was off the court first. Time to check the twitters…
BC
As always, twitter is way ahead. We won going away…
[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordwtennis/status/1505656866029793281?s=21[/tweet]
All the singles matches were won in straight sets.
BC
Also, congratulations to Lele for her 500th career victory.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordwtennis/status/1505657473323085824?s=21[/tweet]
BC
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 03-21-2022
For the record, Yepifanova was first off court, then Choy, and then Ma clinched. That was a nice, comprehensive win. Left no doubt. Xu was the only one to let her opponent get to four games in a set, and she still finished before Houghton did.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - magnus - 04-16-2022
Just noticed we lost to Cal today. Haven't been paying attention (i miss the updates) over the last month. Are we underperforming?
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - 2006alum - 04-17-2022
Hope everything is OK with Colorado Tree - they haven't posted or even visited the site in a few weeks. The gap in our knowledge of women's tennis definitely drops off when their participation around here does.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 04-18-2022
Hey all,
Haven't been around much--busy at work, coupled with the women's tennis team having a series of disappointing outings. In short, yes, they're absolutely underperforming, and my expectations for this season have dropped considerably since the ASU upset loss. But I'm doing fine, thanks for your concern! Just wasn't feeling too excited about writing about the team is all. Ma has turned in four straight clunkers, so I presume something isn't quite right with her, whether physically or mentally. Yepifanova has been excellent. Blake had absolutely no business losing to ASU's Gallagher, but handled her business otherwise. Houghton has been OK. Xu has been just OK. Choy has mostly handled her business but should've beaten Cal's Richardson.
Anyway, yeah. Just not consistently good enough performances to make us a realistic national title contender--except Yepifanova. She's done her part. The gradual improvement throughout the season that has been a hallmark of Stanford women's tennis just hasn't materialized this year. Sigh.
Pac-12 championships this weekend, and while we'll beat the Oregon/Colorado winner on Thursday, I don't have much optimism that we'd beat UCLA or Cal.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - BobK - 04-18-2022
Welcome back. Always love your posts win or lose. Goal is to beat usc or cal get you excited again :)
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 04-19-2022
(04-18-2022, 04:06 PM)BobK Wrote: Welcome back. Always love your posts win or lose. Goal is to beat usc or cal get you excited again :)
Ha!
It's mainly frustrating because this team has the pieces. Last year's team didn't have the pieces. Hopefully, with another year under our freshmen's belts and adding a top player like Blokhina while only losing Madurawe and Choy, we'll be more dangerous and a little more consistent.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - 2006alum - 04-19-2022
Glad you're back, Colorado Tree! And hopefully out women's team will bounce back this week too. Looking at our stats sheets for this season, it looks like our two trouble spots are the 2 and 3 spots in doubles (11-7 record; 8-6 record) and the 3 spot in singles (10-8 record between Geller's 0-2, Houghton's 9-6, and Xu's 1-0). Am I right in thinking Michaela Gordon's last minute decision not to come back may be the difference maker here? IIRC, she would have probably slotted in at the 3 (or either way, pushed Houghton to the 4), and was also one of our better doubles players. If we regularly give up the doubles point and the 3 slot against good teams, that puts a lot of pressure up and down the rest of the lineup to get 4 of the other 5 singles points.
And one other thing I just noticed: Geller hasn't played since our Mar. 22 upset loss to UC Santa Barbara. I wonder if she was playing injured and finally threw in the towel on the season? She'd been cut from our singles lineup pretty quickly and had only been playing the 3 in doubles with Madurawe.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - ColoradoTree - 04-19-2022
(04-19-2022, 08:44 AM)2006alum Wrote: Glad you're back, Colorado Tree! And hopefully out women's team will bounce back this week too. Looking at our stats sheets for this season, it looks like our two trouble spots are the 2 and 3 spots in doubles (11-7 record; 8-6 record) and the 3 spot in singles (10-8 record between Geller's 0-2, Houghton's 9-6, and Xu's 1-0). Am I right in thinking Michaela Gordon's last minute decision not to come back may be the difference maker here? IIRC, she would have probably slotted in at the 3 (or either way, pushed Houghton to the 4), and was also one of our better doubles players. If we regularly give up the doubles point and the 3 slot against good teams, that puts a lot of pressure up and down the rest of the lineup to get 4 of the other 5 singles points.
And one other thing I just noticed: Geller hasn't played since our Mar. 22 upset loss to UC Santa Barbara. I wonder if she was playing injured and finally threw in the towel on the season? She'd been cut from our singles lineup pretty quickly and had only been playing the 3 in doubles with Madurawe.
Geller had been playing doubles even after getting dropped from the singles lineup, so that suggests to me it wasn't an injury but a fitness/form issue (just seeing her play earlier this year, she looked a bit heavier than last year and a step slower--I wonder if she had an injury in the offseason that affected training). And even then, her doubles line (mostly pairing with Madurawe) wasn't having a lot of success, so I'm not surprised to see she's been dropped from doubles as well. Certainly could've been something nagging, of course--the kind of thing that isn't going to get worse but also isn't going to get better absent rest.
And I think you mean #4 singles, but yes, it's been a brobdingnagian hole. Going into the season, I expected us to be darn near unbeatable at the 4-5-6 lines, and while we haven't been as good at 5 and 6 as I thought we'd be, 4 has been the biggest disappointment.
Gordon deciding not to come back has certainly been brobdingnagian in retrospect. We don't really know where she would've slotted into the lineup, but if she'd continued to play in the offseason and kept her form up, maybe 2? Just imagine this lineup:
1. Ma
2. Gordon
3. Yepifanova
4. Blake
5. Houghton/Geller
6. Xu
That's a deadly lineup. Doubles is probably a bit better--enough to get us some of the close doubles points we've dropped. But you could basically chalk up singles wins from the 3/4/6 lines in every match, and 1/2/5 would be expected to win most of the time. But really, even with the lineup we have, we should be better. Like I said before, we have the pieces. Always happy to have more pieces, and Gordon is a heckuva piece, but you look at the lineup on paper and this is a team that should be doing better.
And not to completely look ahead to next year, but next year is really the year where this freshman class should pay the most dividends before we lose Blake to graduation. It's the same lineup, except instead of Choy at 6, you put in Blokhina or Geller (and I would expect you'd see Xu climb to 4, pushing Houghton/Geller/Blokhina down). With another year under everyone's belts, I like that lineup a whole lot.
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - BostonCard - 04-22-2022
Hoping this…
[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfordwtennis/status/1517691783156690944?s=21&t=nwbBD7k_4kYD_VFcs6tyqQ[/tweet]
Will cheer ColoradoTree up. Hoping for more tomorrow, but beating UCLA 4-1 is a big win for the program. We lost the doubles, but took 3 singles matches in straight sets.
Xu clinched.
BC
RE: Women's Tennis: New Rankings, Pepperdine, and Oregon - Spiny_Norman - 04-23-2022
Stanford will play ASU which upset top seeded Cal 4-3 in the semis. When Stanford and ASU met in the regular season, ASU dominated 4-2. The Sun Devils won the doubles point, then got straight set singles wins over Ma, Houghton and Blake.
P12 Network subscribers can watch the final match live today at 12 pm on P12 Network LA.