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RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Lorcan - 05-03-2025

#6 Oklahoma falls and Stanford gets #20 Oklahoma State in the next round! It’ll be a tough matchup - but a winnable one, I think.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Jamesy - 05-03-2025

(05-03-2025, 04:15 PM)Lorcan Wrote:  #6 Oklahoma falls and Stanford gets #20 Oklahoma State in the next round! It’ll be a tough matchup - but a winnable one, I think.

Both teams are unseeded. OSU will be hosting Stanford on Saturday.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Lorcan - 05-03-2025

I believe with the Super Regional Format, we’ll actually be playing Oklahoma State at Michigan with the winner taking on who wins between #3 Michigan and #14 Texas. 

Shaffer and Okpara snapping a 7 game losing streak in doubles and Ma/Glozman beating the #8 team today was brobdingnagian.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - TooMuchTV - 05-03-2025

(05-03-2025, 05:57 PM)Lorcan Wrote:  I believe with the Super Regional Format, we’ll actually be playing Oklahoma State at Michigan with the winner taking on who wins between #3 Michigan and #14 Texas. 

Shaffer and Okpara snapping a 7 game losing streak in doubles and Ma/Glozman beating the #8 team today was brobdingnagian.
It’s on the calendar at gostanford.com at Stillwater, OK.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Lorcan - 05-03-2025

Yep. Stillwater is right. I keep on thinking they’ve changed the format - but they haven’t. Super Regional is such an odd term.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Spiny_Norman - 05-03-2025

Stanford has defeated OSU as a lower seeded team in the NCAAs before as the 15th seeded Cardinal defeated the 12th seed Cowgirls in the NCAA championship match in 2016. 

https://tulsahurricane.com/news/2016/5/24/tulsa-hurricane-stanford-women-win-ncaa-tennis-title-in-tulsa

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - ColoradoTree - 05-05-2025

So, long time no see, folks! Can't say that I thought we'd be in this position of not just pulling off an upset against a higher seed to win the regional, but doing so pretty solidly. But that's a happy surprise for sure. 

Some overall thoughts:

* Wait, we won doubles against a seeded team?
* Two absolutely dominant showings in singles from Ma and Driscoll. Caroline Driscoll has been a revelation, and she's got another year after this, too. She may not have been in the plans coming into the fall season, and I figured she was as good of a stopgap as we could get, but she's certainly made her case to be included next year. 
* I don't think a team that rolls out Okpara at 6 (or Xu at 4) is a legitimate title contender, but this team has done a terrific job of responding to adversity and departures. Absent injuries, this team had legitimate title aspirations, but to even make it to the second weekend after losing Blokhina and Houghton to the pros, Hui and Yepifanova to injury, and Yu to the transfer portal after last season? That's an amazing coaching job by Frankie and Janice, and it shows how rock solid of a player and leader Connie Ma is. 
* Can't say enough about Yepifanova's fight in being out there. She's clearly not at her usual standard, but to even come out and give it a go allows us to have more of a chance on Courts 5 and 6 than we otherwise would. 
* Valerie Glozman is so good, you guys. Down 4-0 in the first, she could have unraveled, but she turned it on from there, winning 13 of the next 16 games to land the plane and clinch the match and take some of the pressure off Xu (who was likely going to lose) and Yepifanova (who was tied up in her second set). 

Looking ahead to Oklahoma State, here are some things to think about as we consider the possibility of making the final site:

* Oklahoma State isn't dominant in doubles, so perhaps there's a shot there. They lost the doubles point to the Sooners in the regionals before storming back in singles, a familiar story to any Stanford women's tennis fan. 
* They are deeper than we are in singles right now, but we should have the edge on high-end talent. They've got five ranked players (#40 Ange Oby Kajuru, #77 Gracie Epps (a transfer from UGA), #84 Anastasiya Komar (LSU transfer), #115 Rose Marie Nijkamp, and #125 Marcela Lopez), but that's misleading in a few ways. First, that doesn't even count freshman Melisa Ercan, who joined the Cowgirls this spring and didn't debut until the end of February, and she's gone 5-4 (all on Court 1) since then. Second, it includes Oby Kajuru, who hasn't played for the Cowgirls in a few months for unknown reasons, but she's been left off the postseason roster. And third, it doesn't mention Kylie Collins, who played #2 singles for the national champion Texas Longhorns in '21-'22 before transferring to LSU and now spending a last year as a grad transfer at Oklahoma State. She's played on all top four singles lines but seems to be their #4 for the postseason. 
* Assuming they line up the same way they did against OU, these will be the matchups:

1. #12 Ma vs. Ercan
2. #8 Glozman vs. #84 Komar
3. #88 Driscoll vs. #115 Nijkamp
4. Xu vs. Collins
5. Yepifanova vs. #77 Epps
6. Okpara vs. #125 Lopez

I'd give us the edge on the top two courts, I'd take Oklahoma State at 4 and 6, and then it'll come down to whether we can get 1-2 wins from Driscoll and Yepifanova. Of course, we're talking about playing in Stillwater, which is a notoriously difficult place to play. One of the best home court advantages in college tennis with all of their fan support, so anything could happen. Getting doubles is always big, but especially when you look at that singles lineup and try to figure out where a fourth win comes from, you know? 

And of course, when I say that I give an edge to one team or the other in a particular match, that doesn't mean Xu isn't capable of beating Collins or Ercan isn't capable of beating Ma. Of course they are, and we'll see how it all plays out!

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - TheFarm07 - 05-05-2025

So great to have you back ColoradoTree! Hopefully your return will bring continued success to the team

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Sakibomb25 - 05-06-2025

Welcome back Colorado Tree! Missed your insights!

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - ColoradoTree - 05-07-2025

(01-27-2025, 04:15 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote:  That would put next year's roster like this:

Seniors: Driscoll (and Sun)
Juniors: Hui
Sophomores: Glozman (and Shaffer)
Freshmen: Ahn, Ekstrand, Wang

Not sure precisely how those freshmen line up, but presumably it would be Glozman at 1, Hui at 2, then the three freshmen, then Driscoll at 6. That's a pretty good lineup, albeit a young one. And if Yepifanova ends up redshirting this year and comes back for next spring (probably unlikely if a pro career is beckoning at that point, but hope springs eternal), we could really have something going. 

Revisiting these thoughts from a few months ago, and Driscoll's performance over the course of the year certainly puts her higher in next year's pecking order than I was thinking back then. Precisely how it all shakes out remains to be seen, and often times the projected order of freshmen coming in doesn't match the first lineups we see in the spring.

Of note, Ekstrand got a wild card to a 35K-level professional even in Jackson, MS in early April, and she ended up winning the whole thing for her first professional title. Congrats to her!

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Sakibomb25 - 05-08-2025

Any idea why Hui was out this year? Is it something where we can expect to see her back at full strength in 2026?

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - ColoradoTree - 05-12-2025

(05-08-2025, 05:09 PM)Sakibomb25 Wrote:  Any idea why Hui was out this year? Is it something where we can expect to see her back at full strength in 2026?

I just know she was hurt--not sure what the injury was, but it was enough to keep her from participating most of the year. 

Anyway, an injury-and-departure-plagued season comes to an end with a 4-3 loss to Oklahoma State, as Ma and Glozman both won solidly to give us life after dropping doubles, and Xu had a terrific win over an excellent opponent to get us one point away. With Okpara getting crushed on 6, that had us up 3-2 with the other two matches into third sets. We just needed one, and Oklahoma State needed both, but they got both. Yepifanova's return to the lineup gave us a puncher's chance, but she clearly wasn't in peak form after being out injured most of the year. 

So, we say goodbye to an outstanding class that deserved to leave Stanford with a national championship but fell short. You can't blame it on Ma or Yepifanova, surely. They've been absolute monsters for us for four years now, and it's just a shame we couldn't do enough around them.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Spiny_Norman - 05-12-2025

Stanford continued its years-long struggle in doubles in NCAA play. Getting 4 singles wins was just too big a hill to climb. 

Yepifanova had an especially tough assignment. Her opponent had not lost at 5 all year (13-0). Yepifanova fought off multiple match points to win an epic 13-11 tiebreaker in the 2nd set. But made a few key mistakes in the 3rd set and that was it.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - TheFarm07 - 05-13-2025

(05-12-2025, 09:27 AM)ColoradoTree Wrote:  
(05-08-2025, 05:09 PM)Sakibomb25 Wrote:  Any idea why Hui was out this year? Is it something where we can expect to see her back at full strength in 2026?

I just know she was hurt--not sure what the injury was, but it was enough to keep her from participating most of the year. 

Anyway, an injury-and-departure-plagued season comes to an end with a 4-3 loss to Oklahoma State, as Ma and Glozman both won solidly to give us life after dropping doubles, and Xu had a terrific win over an excellent opponent to get us one point away. With Okpara getting crushed on 6, that had us up 3-2 with the other two matches into third sets. We just needed one, and Oklahoma State needed both, but they got both. Yepifanova's return to the lineup gave us a puncher's chance, but she clearly wasn't in peak form after being out injured most of the year. 

So, we say goodbye to an outstanding class that deserved to leave Stanford with a national championship but fell short. You can't blame it on Ma or Yepifanova, surely. They've been absolute monsters for us for four years now, and it's just a shame we couldn't do enough around them.

With the departures of Ma and Yepifanova but the arrival of what seems like a promising freshman class, what's your early assessment of our team next year? Driscoll was a pleasant surprise but on paper, is it too much to ask for the freshmen to step up in their first year and help us contend for a title again?

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - ColoradoTree - 05-27-2025

You know, I don't think it's too much to ask highly-touted freshmen to come in and play as well as we think they could. When this team is cranking, it's because top freshmen have come in and dominated on the lower courts. I think of Caroline Lampl and Melissa Lord winning a national title as freshmen in 2016 after holding down the 5 and 6 lines all year. Michaela Gordon and Janice Shin were key players as freshmen in the 2018 title win. We didn't need our freshmen quite as much in 2019 (Choy and Madurawe), but still, both contributed, including Choy winning at #6 in the NCAA semifinals. 

So, as long as we've got some veteran leadership, having a few freshmen playing in the singles lineup isn't too heavy of a lift. But looking at next year's roster, we're a little lighter on experience than we usually are. Losing the three seniors (Ma, Yepifanova, and Xu) is tough, since the ideal is to have two in each class to match up with the 8-scholarship limit, and then you throw Blokhina's early pro departure and Yu's unprecedented-in-my-memory-at-least outgoing transfer, and we're very young. So, I don't love that. But Glozman crushed it this year as a freshman, so no reason our incoming trio can't come in and do what past rookies have done. 

On the topic of early departures, I just saw the news that India Houghton is putting her pro career on pause to go and play for Florida as a grad transfer. Her pro career this spring didn't go terribly well, as her record in main draw matches was 2-6, all at the lowest W15 level. (That said, her record in doubles--which has to be her only chance at a meaningful pro career--was 8-5, though all still at that W15 level.) Unclear that her spring was better spent than it could've been playing at 5 or 6 in our lineup, and Houghton at 6 is much, much better than Okpara at 6. 

Blokhina has had better singles results (13-8), and across W15, W35, and W50 tournaments, but again, it's unclear whether her spring served her better than playing #3 in our lineup would have. She didn't win any titles, but we could have been in the mix for one if she'd stayed. 

Compare their springs to that of incoming freshman Monika Ekstrand, who won two W35 titles this spring, including the one in Jackson I mentioned a few posts ago, and in that one, Blokhina lost in the second round to a player that Ekstrand then beat on her road to the title. Anyway, Ekstrand looks to have pole position among the incoming freshmen.
Another way of looking at it is that we're entering a three-year window with a core of four top players (Glozman plus the three incoming freshmen) where they can grow together into something special. 

But you never really know until freshmen get to campus what you have. Sometimes it's not the higher-ranked recruit that ends up playing higher in the lineup, you know? And sometimes a recruit who was tagged as a blue chip coming in never even comes close to living up to that billing.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - TheFarm07 - 05-28-2025

Thanks ColoradoTree for the insight.

From my assessment of your analysis (correct me if I am wrong), you seem to be expecting that all 3 freshmen would contribute immediately next year but our national title chances might be capped?

I assume our starting singles lineup would be Glozman, Driscoll and the three freshmen plus Hui?

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - ColoradoTree - 05-30-2025

(05-28-2025, 07:57 PM)TheFarm07 Wrote:  Thanks ColoradoTree for the insight.

From my assessment of your analysis (correct me if I am wrong), you seem to be expecting that all 3 freshmen would contribute immediately next year but our national title chances might be capped?

I assume our starting singles lineup would be Glozman, Driscoll and the three freshmen plus Hui?

Yep, I think that's about right. While Sun was a blue chip, I don't think it's reasonable to expect anything from her moving forward. How exactly the lineup falls into place after Glozman is a bit unclear, as we don't know how Hui will look after a long injury layoff, Driscoll outperformed my expectations of her all season, and you never know what you really have in freshmen until they get on campus. But yeah, that's your six, barring injury.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Lorcan - 06-08-2025

It's nice to see Alexis Blokhina win a W50 in Troisdorf, Germany after coming through qualifying. She beat Anna Lena Friedsam in the finals and will enter the top 500 in the world with that title.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - Lorcan - 06-12-2025

It's always interesting to see how the ITA Kickoff Weekend Draft goes - and this year is an unusual one for Stanford as they aren't hosting as we're ranked #22. So, with that in mind, it's fun to watch where other teams go. A lot of this is about going where you think you have the best odds of advancing through the weekend dependent on next years rosters. 

#15 Oklahoma State selected #14 Texas Tech
#16 UCLA goes to #11 LSU
#17 Vanderbilt goes to #3 Michigan (This is an interesting choice - given that Michigan only loses their #1 from what I can make out. I'm sure others are more in tune with what Michigan lost after running to the Final Four this year.)
#18. Washington goes to #9 Tennessee
#19 California goes to #13 Texas
#20 USC goes to #7 Virginia
#21 UCF follows UCLA to LSU for a cracking regional of LSU, UCLA, and UCF. 
#22 Stanford picks #10 Oklahoma
#23 Wisconsin joins USC and Virginia in Charlottesville. 
#24 Baylor joins California and Texas in Austin. 
#25. Pepperdine joins Washington and Tennessee in Knoxville. 

In looking at where Stanford drew, Oklahoma seems like a reasonable choice given that they presumably are losing Alina Shcherbinina (#1), Emma Staker (#4), and Ava Catanzarite (#5) - but I can't verify who may still have eligibility after this season. It was most likely the best available, unless you wanted to go join Washington and Tennessee in Knoxville. We'll get #69 Yale in the first round, with #57 Memphis starting against Oklahoma. 

I'm sure Colorado Tree has some thoughts on who's going where, but I think we've done well to avoid an ACC Team and get opponents outside of the ACC for this kickoff weekend.  

It's worth noting that the men are seeded #4, and they are already at the 46th selection and Stanford's site hasn't been selected yet.

RE: Women's Tennis: Spring 2025 - spike5882 - 06-13-2025

A note on the men's side ... the #1 recruit Jagger Leach decommitted from TCU and will be headed to Stanford next year.  He is the son of Lindsay Davenport and will be a great addition to the team next year.  Also, 2026 recruiting is looking very solid on the men's side! Assuming Banerjee stays, we should be pretty solid next year.