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RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-22-2023

Connie rolled in her singles match, 6-1, 6-0 over Pepperdine's Campana, setting up a match against TCU's Isabel Pascual. Pascual took a medical redshirt last year, but the year before she mostly played at #3 singles for the Horned Frogs. She should be on court shortly for her next match.

Houghton lost her match, but it took Miyamoto 7-5 in the third set to take it, so that's a somewhat positive sign for Houghton going into her last year. I'd love for that internal competition for the singles back courts to be fierce, so this suggests that Houghton is going to put herself in that mix. 

And Blake/Ma won in doubles twice, so they're into tomorrow's semifinals. They play Pepperdine's Redelijk/Campana tomorrow at 9am.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-22-2023

Connie beat Pascual 6-0, 6-4, setting her up against 5th-seeded (and #6 newcomer) Aysegul Mert of Georgia. That match will be in about an hour or so.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - fullmetal - 09-22-2023

The match has started.  Live video link here: https://web.track.tennis/#/@public-QQLN_g9kpvE/@public-QQLN_g9kpvE/evt-hNlyJTAG9NE/75315

(Or they're still warming up for a bit more...)

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-23-2023

Well, that was easy! Connie rolls 6-0, 6-1 over Mert, which sets her up to play 4th-seeded (and 40th-ranked) Ange Oby Kajuru of Oklahoma State starting right now, so that should give her a better test than she's had so far. But even if she wins, she won't play Vidmanova, who got upset in the quarters, so she's the highest seed left and needs to win to avoid a loss that would bring her down in the rankings. 

Meanwhile, Alexis Blokhina and Valencia Xu have been taking part in the Milwaukee Tennis Classic, a great tournament that sees its champion qualify for Fall Nationals. Blokhina came in seeded 3rd and Xu was 5th; both made the quarterfinals after some wins over unranked opponents, and while Xu fell to UNC's Reilly Tran (seeded 4th, ranked #76), Blokhina beat highly-touted UNC freshman Theadora Rabman 6-2, 6-2. Blokhina is playing Wisconsin's Xinyu Cai (ranked #89) in today's semifinal. Blokhina dropped the first set 6-4 and is currently in a second-set tiebreaker.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-23-2023

Blokhina lost that second-set tiebreaker, but Ma rolled past Kajuru 6-0, 6-3. She seems to be in midseason form.

It'll be Blake/Ma for the doubles title tomorrow against Pepperdine's Broadus/Peyre at 9:30 a.m., and Ma will play #45 Amelia Honer of UCSB for the singles title at 1:00pm.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-25-2023

Ma struggled a little with Honer in the early going, but turned on the jets in the second set to finish her off, 7-6, 6-1, for the singles title. Well done, Connie!

In doubles, Blake/Ma dropped the final 8-5 to Pepperdine's Broadus/Peyre, but all in all, a nice start to the fall for that pair. 

Up next is the Cal Invitational this weekend.

CORRECTION: The team was Savannah Broadus of Pepperdine but Luciana Peyre plays for Oklahoma State. I saw Broadus and just assumed Peyre was at Pepperdine rather than a combined doubles team, since those are so rare in college tournaments.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-29-2023

Hi folks! The Cal Invitational gets started today, and we have a smaller group of players in Berkeley playing. 

Eleana Yu will see her first action of the fall, and she'll be joined by Emma Sun and India Houghton in singles and Yu will partner with Valencia Xu in doubles. 

Xu/Yu is the fourth seed in the main draw, and they start off this morning at 8:30am. Sun and Houghton are also playing doubles in lower draws, but they're partnered with players from other schools. The plan appears to have the second round of doubles later this morning, and then perhaps singles in the afternoon, because the singles draws aren't out yet.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - magnus - 09-29-2023

Scores here:
https://colleges.wearecollegetennis.com/Competitions/UnivOfCaliforniaBerkeleyW/Tournaments/schedule/B5A1797F-9DA2-4552-8E46-91EE2029D9A1/completed

Xu/Yu won.  Sun won.  Didn't see Houghton on there so maybe still playing(?)

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-30-2023

In singles, Yu is the 3 seed behind two Cal Bears, Katja Wiersholm and Hanna Viller Moeller. Another Bear, freshman Mao Mushika is the 4 seed. This is the Cal Invitational, after all, so it stands to reason that a few Bears would be highly placed among the seeds, and we still haven't seen Yu play a college match, so one never knows, but Yu is better than all of them. India Houghton is the 7 seed, which is a little surprising, but I just think that shows that this is a pretty weak field. 

Yu beat her first round opponent with a double bagel, and her second round match is up at 10:30am. Assuming she wins that, she'd have a quarterfinal against 8th-seeded Kira Reuter of UCSB at 2:00pm. Houghton won her first round match, 2 and 4, and she'll play Michaela Gordon's little sister Jenna at 10:30 as well. 

Meanwhile, Emma Sun is in the lower tier singles draw, and she won her first two matches to set up a R16 match with Cal's Makenna Thiel, a junior who sometimes plays #6 for them. These are the kind of matches you'd like to see Sun win, if only to give you a little hope that she could develop into a contributor. 

Xu/Yu won their first doubles match, and their next one was scheduled for yesterday morning, but I'm not seeing a result posted.
Pre-qualifying is getting going over at ITA All-Americans today in North Carolina, but I don't see any of our players in the draw. Perhaps Xu will go straight from Berkeley to Cary in order to compete in the qualifying draw? Qualifying starts Monday, so perhaps her ranking was high enough to get her directly into that draw. That she's not playing singles in Berkeley would be consistent with wanting to stay relatively fresh for that tournament (of course, it would also be consistent with a minor injury)

But the pre-qualifying is where Yu and Hui would've automatically been entered as ranked newcomers, so their absence means that either they got wild cards into qualifying (more likely for Hui than Yu, given the US Open junior title), or they're not coming. That Yu is in Berkeley makes me think that she, at least, is probably not coming. Seems like a missed opportunity if so.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - magnus - 09-30-2023

Xu/Yu lost this morning in doubles

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-02-2023

And Yu lost to Cal's Wiersholm, 6-2, 6-3, so that's the end of that tournament. 

Meanwhile, the qualifying singles draw gets underway today at Fall All-Americans in Cary, NC, and Ma, Blokhina, and Hui are in this draw, which will whittle 64 players down to 8 who will qualify for the main draw. In doubles, Ma will partner with Yepifanova. Blake and Yepifanova should already be through to the main draw in singles given their rankings, but we'll see. For qualifying, though, Ma is the 4th seed.

Today's action:

8:30am PT: (4) Ma vs. #52 Isabella Pfennig (Miami)
8:30am: Hui vs. 9th-seeded and 45th-ranked Amelia Honer (UCSB)
9:00am: #54 Blokhina vs. #109 Charlotte Owensby (Harvard)
11:00am PT: Ma/Yepifanova vs. Stammel/Stevens (Vanderbilt)

Live video here: https://web.playsight.com/facility/town-of-cary/home 
Cracked Racquets simulcast here: https://www.youtube.com/c/crackedracquets

Looks like Hui is just getting started on Court 12 right now, while Ma is on Court 15.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-02-2023

As a reminder, even the qualifying draw of this tournament is terrific tennis. The top seed in qualifying is #18 Tanya Sasnouskaya of Texas, the 2nd seed is #19 Carson Tanguilig of UNC, and the 3rd seed is #23 Sarah Hamner of South Carolina. 

Roads to Qualify

If Ma wins her first round match against Pfennig, she'll play #68 Elizabeth Scotty of UNC, and she'd have to get a third win over someone like #36 Emma Jackson of Duke, #49 Sofiya Chekylstova of Penn State, or #65 Victoria Allen from FSU to book a spot in the main draw. 

If Hui wins her first round match against Honer, she'll play #67 Bridget Stammel (Vandy), and she'd have to get a third win over either #74 Charlotte Chavatipon (Texas), #110 Sophie Abrams (NC State), or unranked Shavit Kimchi, who upset #29 Nicole Khirin of Texas A&M this morning. 

If Blokhina wins her first round match against Owensby, she'll probably play #44 Casie Wooten of Wake Forest, and then she'd need a third win over someone like #30 Abbey Forbes (UNC, formerly UCLA), #75 Abigail Desiatnikov (USD), or #104 DJ Bennett (Auburn) to get through. 

Ranked players everywhere. You need lots of good ranked wins to qualify for the NCAA singles tournament at the end of the spring season, and this is a place where you can find them in droves. 

Right now, Ma took the first set 6-1 over Pfennig, and Hui is serving down 4-5 in the first. 
Unfortunately, the live scoring doesn't seem to be functioning on the courts where Hui and Ma are currently playing, so I have no idea how they're doing, and I'm not going to be able to follow every point and keep score myself, so we'll have to rely on these periodic score updates to see how they're doing.
Hu had deciding point on her serve to force a first-set tiebreaker, but Honer won the point to take the first set 7-5. Meanwhile, Ma is down a break early in the second.

Ma leads 6-1, 1-2 (Court 15)
Hui trails 5-7, 0-0 (Court 12)
Blokhina leads Owensby 2-1 (Court 1)

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-02-2023

It looks like Hui dropped the first set 7-5. Ma appears to be on serve in the second at 6-1, 1-2.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-02-2023

Ma leads 6-1, 3-3
Hui trails 5-7, 1-2
Blokhina leads 6-1 in a match moving at lightning speed.
Ma leads 6-1, 4-5 (sigh)
Hui trails 5-7, 2-3
Blokhina leads 6-1, 4-1
Ma broke to level at 5-5 in the second, so let's see if she can hold here....
Meanwhile, Hui wins a couple in a row to go up 4-3 in her second!
* Ma leads 6-1, 6-5, and Pfennig will serve to stay in the match next
* Hui trails 5-7, 4-5 (after she held and broke Honer to go up a break, Honer returned the favor, so Hui will have to serve to stay in it now)
* Blokhina won 6-1, 6-2!
Ma broke for the win, 6-1, 7-5! Meanwhile, Hui holds for 5-5 in the second. Not done yet!
And Hui breaks for 6-5! Serving for the second set now.
Broken and it's a tiebreaker. Come on, Katherine!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-02-2023

It looks like Hui just leveled it out - on to a decider!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-02-2023

Hui wins the second set tiebreaker and Honer is not happy about it. Let's see if Katherine can turn on the jets in the third and capitalize on this momentum!
Hui is down a break in the third, serving down 1-3.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-02-2023

It looks like Hui is still down a break at 2-4 in the decider.
Hui holds, 3-4.
Hui gets broken, and falls 7-5 6-7 6-3 - still not a bad showing against a respectable opponent.
In a continuation of Stanford being on the courts, Ma and Yepifanova will be on court 6 for the beginning of their doubles campaign.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-02-2023

Bummer about Hui, but Honer is a tough opponent, and no shame in a freshman losing to a highly-ranked junior in her first match. Still, though, Hui comes in as a far more highly-touted recruit than Honer did. But full credit to Honer, of course.

Ma and Yepifanova playing together here (combined with their #60 preseason ranking together), indicates pretty strongly that Lele intends to pair those two together this season. The preseason doubles rankings usually take into account intended pairings since we often see shuffling between seasons. Assuming Blake/Blokhina continue to be the top pair, then it'll likely be Connie and Sasha in the #2 spot, with the #3 spot TBD. Xu/Yu in doubles last weekend was one possible option. Xu/Hui or Yu/Hui would be others, though obviously Geller and Houghton could be in the mix, too.
Times are TBD, but tomorrow Ma will play #68 Elizabeth Scotty (Sr., UNC), who mostly played on the #4 and #5 lines for UNC last year, though she also got a few matches at #2 and #3, and Blokhina will play #44 Casie Wooten (Sr., Wake Forest), who held down the #1 spot for the Demon Deacons all year last year. 

In the consolation draw, Hui is slated to take on UNC's Theadora Rabman, a fellow blue chip freshman. Rabman lost 2 and 2 to Blokhina in Milwaukee last week. Hui will be favored there.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-02-2023

Ma/Yepifanova move on with an 8-6 win over the Vanderbilt duo Bridget Stammel and Amy Stevens. In a brief look at Vandy's lineup, it looks like this was equivilent to Vandy's #3 team from last season.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-02-2023

Ma/Yepifanova won 8-6, so they'll play top-seeded and 25th-ranked Alvarez Sande/Tse from Wazzu. Ma and Yepifanova are vastly better singles players than those two, but doubles is a funny game, and talent in singles doesn't always translate.

That match will be in about an hour, so Ma will be playing with minimal rest.