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RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-05-2023

(Doubles was not better.)

That's a wrap for Cardinal participation in All-Americans, and next up is the ITA Northwest Regionals, hosted by Stanford at Taube next weekend. It's probably my favorite tournament of the fall, because the entire roster participates, and the seeding gives us insight into where Lele sees our freshmen fitting in and what our singles lineup order will be come spring. The singles finalists both qualify for Fall Nationals, and in many years, Stanford provides both finalists. (Sometimes, we provide all four semifinalists, which is a special kind of fun.) The Northwest region also includes Cal, Washington, Oregon, St. Mary's, and just about every D1 school north of Fresno, so the competition isn't quite as difficult as some other regions in the country, but it's still a heck of a good tournament, and if you're around, you should check it out!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-11-2023

Just noticed an interesting quirk on the roster that wasn't there during ITA All-Americans: we have a new player! 

Chidimma Okpara is listed as a graduate student on the roster. She was a 5-star recruit in the Class of 2019 (so, a notch below the blue chips on our roster), and she finished as the #55 recruit in that class, peaking as high as #35. She went to Dartmouth, where she played #1 singles her junior and senior seasons and was second team All-Ivy both seasons. 

So, a real live grad transfer joins the program. I wouldn't expect her to figure into the team in singles with the depth and high-end talent we have, but she's an experienced collegiate player and that could be incredibly useful in practice. And if nothing else, she's additional good depth for the team. Curious to see whether she plays at Northwest Regionals this weekend, and if so, how she does. The greater the competition for the last couple singles slots on the roster, the better!

Welcome, Chidimma!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-12-2023

OK, so the Northwest Regionals draws are up, and here are the seeds in order:

1. Jessica Alsola, Cal
2. Yepifanova
3. Ma
4. Katja Wiersholm, Cal
5. Blokhina
6. Hannah Viller Moeller, Cal
7. Yinglak Jittakoat, Fresno State
8. Mao Mushika, Cal

Then you have another eight seeds, all called 9 seeds, so basically a second tier of 9-16 seeds but on the same level. That includes:

* Xu
* Hui
* Astrid Olsen, UW
* Erika Matsuda, UW
* Iva Zelic, Portland
* Sophie Luescher, Oregon
* Eva Alvarez Sande, WSU
* Klara Kosan, UOP

This is an incredibly deferential seeding order to Cal, with Alsola over all of our players, Wiersholm over Blokhina, and Mushika over Xu and Hui. But tournament seeding is usually by a coaches' committee that seeks consensus, and there are usually some 9-type seeds in tournaments like this that are handed out to a lesser team's #1 player even if some better players on better teams that go unseeded as a result. But having 3 Cal players in the top 5 and 4 of the top 8 just isn't consistent with reality. Blake isn't in the draw (no idea why), but Eleana Yu unseeded? You can justify Alsola behind her absolute dismantling of Blake at All-Americans, but the rest of this is a bit silly. Anyway, the seeding of our players tells us Lele has the following internal pecking order:

Yepifanova
Ma
Blokhina
Xu and Hui in some order
Yu

Where Blake fits in is unclear, but certainly in the top 6. That suggests that as of now, Lele doesn't anticipate playing both Hui AND Yu regularly, and that our top 4 may be basically unchanged from last year. Also, Houghton is in the draw as an unseeded player, no surprise there, and Geller, Okpara, and Sun are also on the entry list in singles but not yet placed in the draw (there are a couple of empty lines in the draw, though, so presumably they'll get placed). 

Irritating. But they'll just have to earn it on the court.
In doubles, these are the seeds:

1. Alsola/Wiersholm, Cal
2. Jittakoat/Magrini, Fresno State
3. Yepifanova/Ma
4. Alvarez Sande/Tse, WSU
5. Zelic/Pethybridge, Portland
6. Luescher/Martinez Moral, Oregon
7. Viller Moeller/Mushika, Cal
8. Olsen/Jacobs, UW

Blokhina is partnered with Hui, Xu is partnered with Houghton, and Yu is partnered with Sun. 

Friday Schedule:

8:30am: Houghton/Xu vs. a duo from Sac State
9:15am: Blokhina/Hui vs. a Gonzaga pair
9:15am: (3) Yepifanova/Ma vs. Kosan/Main (UOP)
10:30am: (3) Ma vs. Stefanie Silva (St. Mary's)
10:30am: (9) Xu vs. Gabriela Tevez (Santa Clara)
10:30am: Houghton vs. Yuna Kadowaki (Seattle)
12:00pm: (5) Blokhina vs. TBD
1:30pm: Yu vs. Hannah Pieper (Fresno State)
2:30pm: (9) Hui vs. Olive Maunupau (UC Davis)
3:30pm: (2) Yepifanova vs. Anastasia-Aleksandra Nikolova (Seattle)

Unclear when Sun, Geller, and Okpara will play, as they're not yet placed in the public draw. 

The second-round singles matches will be tomorrow afternoon, so by the end of tomorrow the draw should be down to 32 players from the current 128.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-12-2023

If seeds hold, these would be the Round of 16 matchups:

(1) Alsola (Cal) vs. (9) Xu 
(8) Mushika (Cal) vs. (9) Olsen (UW) (Houghton is in Olsen's section)

(3) Ma vs. (9) Zelic (Portland)
(5) Blokhina vs. (9) Luescher (UO)

(6) Viller Moeller (Cal) vs. (9) Alvarez Sande (WSU) (Yu is in Viller Moeller's section)
(4) Wiersholm (Cal) vs. (9) Matsuda (UW)

(7) Jittakoat (FSU) vs. (9) Hui
(2) Yepifanova vs. (9) Kosan (UOP)

These draws seem engineered to avoid what has sometimes happened in the past: all-Stanford semifinals.
Interestingly, the player entry list shows 139 names for singles, but there will only be 128 in the field, with 120 names in the draw so far. So, perhaps one or more of Geller, Sun, or Okpara will be left out of the field or will play some non-tournament added matches. But no reason why you couldn't have a qualifying round or two to get that group down to 8 and then plug those players into the draw.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-13-2023

Geller, Sun, and Okpara join the draw, but Hui is now out of the draw for reasons unknown. (Ugh. I hope she's ok. I wanted to see how she'd stack up here and if she could give Yepifanova a run in a quarterfinal. She's still in the doubles draw, though.) Here are those additional matches:

* Geller plays SJSU's Rozalina Youseva at 11:30am. She's in Ma's section of the draw, so they'd potentially meet in the Round of 32. 
* Sun plays UC Davis's Michelle Zell at 2:00pm. She's in Wiersholm's section. 
* Okpara plays Oregon's Karin Young at 2:30pm. She's in Filip's section, who is the new 9 seed to replace Hui.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-13-2023

It's disappointing that I can't find a live stream for this tournament - we've had great streaming in the past. I wonder what's up....

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-13-2023

(10-13-2023, 10:01 AM)Lorcan Wrote:  It's disappointing that I can't find a live stream for this tournament - we've had great streaming in the past. I wonder what's up....

There's something lackadaisical about our athletic department when it comes to this stuff. We have Playsight, we just have to turn on the cameras, but we don't seem to care about that before the spring season starts. I recognize that there are relatively few Stanford tennis diehards out there, but it would be good to have some ability to follow this team right now. Sigh....

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-13-2023

OK, some results are starting to get posted:

* Blokhina/Hui won 8-7
* Houghton/Xu won 8-1
* Sun/Yu won 8-7

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Sakibomb25 - 10-13-2023

Looks like everyone won. Everyone but Sun and Okpara won in straights. Yepifanova's match looked closer than all the other higher seeds (won 4 and 2).

You can find the dra and results HERE.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - martyup - 10-14-2023

Xu beats #1 seed Alsola to advance to the quarter finals.  (2-6, 6-2, 6-0)
Houghton can meet Xu in the quarters if she beats Mushika.

Ma and Blokhina both advance and will play each other in the quarters.

Yepifanova also advances to the quarters.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-15-2023

Yepifanova cruised in her quarterfinal, setting up a match against Cal's Hannah Viller Moeller, who beat her teammate Katja Wiersholm in a minor upset. 

Meanwhile, Blokhina challenged Ma but it wasn't quite enough, with Ma winning 2-6, 7-5, 6-3. The result in Xu's match against Cal's Mao Mushika hasn't been posted, but I don't see them on court anywhere, and it should have been over for hours by now. We'll see!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-15-2023

Xu won, so Ma v Xu for a spot in the final and Yepifanova will try and take out the last player from Cal.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-16-2023

Both semifinal singles matches are on at 10:30am! Recall that the finalists both qualify for Fall Nationals in San Diego in a few weeks, as does the doubles champion. So, here's hoping that it's an all-Stanford affair!

The time for Ma/Yepifanova's match against Cal's Viller Moeller/Mushika is listed as "not scheduled," but presumably it'll be sometime this afternoon after Yepifanova, Ma, and Viller Moeller have had adequate rest. 

I would've thought they'd try and get the finals played today as well, because it's already Monday and there's the whole student part of student-athlete to consider. 

If it's an all-Stanford final, then you might see that get pushed to tomorrow at a time that works for everyone, class-wise.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-16-2023

Singles matches are over and Ma/Yepifanova are warming up for their doubles match now on Court 2 (you can see it via the live video link, but no live scoring along with it). 

The singles results haven't been posted yet, of course. Why would they have been? The matches have only been over for a few hours. *eyes roll violently*

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-16-2023

Connie Ma defeats Valencia Xu 6-1 1-6 6-3.

I still haven't seen anything about Yepifanova's match.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-16-2023

Ooof, looks like Viller Moeller knocked off Yepifanova in three sets. There are good losses sometimes. This ain't one of them.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-16-2023

It just makes you wonder what happened after Yepifanova won the first set 6-1. Hopefully, Connie can avenge her teammate in the next round.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Lorcan - 10-16-2023

Viller Moller takes the double over Yepifanova as Cal sweeps to an all bears final in the doubles. 

Connie Ma is the last remaining Stanford interest.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-17-2023

It'll be Ma vs. Viller Moeller at 10:40 this morning, so head on over if you're around campus!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 10-17-2023

Ugh, Connie lost in a third-set tiebreaker. Sigh.