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Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - Printable Version

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Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-22-2020

Dual season is finally here, folks! Your #1 Stanford women's tennis team is back in action this weekend at Taube, playing South Florida on Saturday at 11:00am, and then (barring calamity) playing the Denver/Washington State winner on Sunday at 11:00am. 

Wait, what is this?

ITA Kick-Off Weekend is a series of 4-team regional tournaments at campus sites; the winner of each tournament books a place at the ITA Indoor National Championships. (The ITA is the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The NCAA sponsors championships for men's and women's tennis, but the ITA does the preseason and in-season heavy lifting, sets the rankings, etc.) The field for each tournament is picked through placing the seeded teams at their home courts, and then letting teams pick, in descending ranking order, where they want to play. So, when this draft was held last spring, then-#16 USC had the first pick and decided to be the 2 seed at #10 Washington. Some seeds get avoided like the plague while teams smell blood in the water at others. For example, #2 UNC (who I think is the favorite to win NCAAs this year) has the #41, #42, and #62 teams at its regional, while #13 Kansas has #18 Cal, #21 UVA, and #22 Tennessee. 

Team overviews:

This is the first dual match of the season for Stanford, so there's a lot to determine in terms of lineup order and doubles teams. Stanford should handle any of these teams, so it's a good time to experiment. 

Denver (2-0) has one ranked singles player (T114 Britt Pursell), as does Wazzu (T103 Melisa Ates). But neither team's #1 player (Taylor Melville for DU and Michaela Bayerlova for WSU) is ranked, even though both have been ranked in the past. USF doesn't have a ranked singles player. 

What to watch for:

Stanford should win without too much difficulty, but more interesting than the win or loss are the following things to keep an eye on:

* What is our singles lineup? After Gordon at 1 and Arbuthnott at 2, the order of Shin, Blake, Choy, Madurawe, Mossmer, and Higuchi is unclear. The traditional model would be Shin at 3, Higuchi at 4, and then some combo of the sophomores and freshmen at 5 and 6, but Higuchi struggled when played at 4 and 5 last year, and she took off once back in her comfort zone at 6. And individual tournaments haven't given me a lot of confidence that Shin is ready to jump from 5 to 3, but I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. 

* How about doubles? Arbuthnott/Blake seem like our top team, and while Gordon/Shin had been playing together, we're still seeing a lot of experimentation. Choy/Higuchi did well at the Freeman, so that could be one of the teams. Expect a lot of movement here in the season's early days. 

* How do the freshmen look? I'm optimistic about Blake, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her start at #3 in the lineup. (I'm bummed we didn't get to see her at the Freeman against some of that talent there.)

* Frankie Brennan is taking the year off for health reasons; can we see any effect from his absence? Can we glean anything about how the new assistant coach, Francis Sergeant, interacts with the players? 

* How does Gordon do against the other teams' aces? 

* How do Arbuthnott and Shin look playing higher in the lineup? 

How to watch:

Live scoring and video is available here: http://streamingtennis.com/Cardinal/?DB_OEM_ID=30600
Elsewhere in the Pac-12:

In addition to Stanford and Wazzu, the rest of the Pac-12 teams (save Colorado and Oregon, whose rankings last year didn't qualify them for the tournament) are also participating in Kick-Off Weekend:

* #4 UCLA hosts #51 Gonzaga, #59 Loyola, and #61 Minnesota
* #14 Washington hosts #12 USC, #27 Kentucky, and #33 Princeton
* #17 Cal is the 2nd seed at #19 Kansas
* #34 Arizona State is the 3rd seed at #10 Vanderbilt
* #44 Utah is the 3rd seed at #14 Michigan
* #49 Arizona is the 3rd seed at #6 Pepperdine

(Cal and USC are ranked higher than the hosts because the hosts were determined based on last year's rankings, not this year's.)

Latest rankings:

Stanford holds steady at #1 in the latest ITA rankings released today, and weirdly, they picked up a first place vote from someone who'd previously had Georgia and UNC tied for first. That's despite Stanford not playing, Georgia also not playing, and UNC blanking a couple of overmatched teams. The only thing that changed was Gordon winning the Freeman with UNC's #1, Makenna Jones, losing 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals to Oklahoma State's Bunyami Thamchaiwat (who Gordon beat in the final), but I wouldn't think that one tournament would be enough to move someone's vote on the team rankings, especially given how solid UNC's top 5 players are and how many questions there are on our team after Gordon. But okay!

The rankings mostly held steady, but South Carolina's loss to N.C. State dropped the Gamecocks from 9th to 13th, allowing USC to move up from 12th to 11th. And UW's 4-3 loss to Florida State saw the Huskies drop from 14th to 17th, allowing Cal to climb a spot to 16th. That UW loss smarts, though. With qualifying to Indoor Nationals hardly a given with USC, Princeton, and Kentucky coming to Seattle this weekend, UW's rankings potential might be limited, which would in turn hurt Stanford's attempt to stay in the top 8 (and the get postseason hosting duties through the Round of 16 that come with that ranking).

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - newguy - 01-22-2020

i remember the days when we had Frank Brennan as coach.  he really did a lot for our program.

at the risk of straying off topic, i wonder how much it would help both the mens' and womens' lower bodies if they got to play on clay instead of hardcourts.  of course, the upkeep for the courts would be prohibitively expensive, but still......

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-23-2020

Yeah, it’s been a few decades since there wasn’t a Brennan coaching this team. Hopefully all goes well and he’s back again next year!

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - oldalum - 01-25-2020

We win easily 4-0 vs. USF, will play WSU tomorrow (rain permitting). I'll be interested in CT's comments on the lineup (notably, Higuchi won at her customary #6 slot by her customary score of 6-2 6-0). The only couple of eyebrow-raisers were Arbuthnott winning her first set but behind in the second 1-5 when the match was stopped, and Shin losing the first set 2-6
. 
But a couple of other top 15 seeds were upset:  #8 Vanderbilt lost a close championship match to Arizona State 4-3 (winning point was on court 6 in a third-set tiebreaker), so ASU is going to the Indoor Nationals. #13 Kansas lost to Tennessee and then to Cal in the consolation match today (#18 Cal lost to #21 Virginia 1-4 yesterday).

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-25-2020

The lineup looks like it was much what I thought it would be: Gordon at 1, Arbuthnott at 2, Blake at 3, Shin at 4, and Higuchi at 6. Interestingly, it’s Choy over Madurawe in the 5 slot, but this is pretty much our ideal lineup, I think. (I’m agnostic as to which of Choy or Madurawe is better, but I like Blake being higher and not pushing Shin higher than she should be. As for Higuchi at 6, why mess with success, right?)

Doubles-wise, this lineup seems about right. I’m very pleased with this. 

As for how things played out, we saw our ace dominant at #1, we saw Higuchi first off court at #6, and we got the clincher from the back half of the lineup. Very familiar, and very comforting. 

Of course, Arbuthnott struggling at #2, and Shin struggling playing higher than last year is frustratingly predictable. (We know this because, well, we predicted it.) 

But this is the roadmap. This is how this team is going to win. A lot of 5-2s and 4-3s, maybe, but we’re going to continue to rely on 5 and 6, and we’ll count more on 1 than we have in the recent past. Luckily, Michaela looks up to the task, but you never want to be too dependent on winning a coin flip between two top 10 players late in the season.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - oldalum - 01-25-2020

BTW, last night the team received their national championship rings during halftime of the WBB game, and the two new players were introduced. The announcer pointed out that W Tennis has won more national championships than any other sport at Stanford.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-26-2020

A tightly-contested doubles point goes Stanford's way, and Stanford leads 1-0 going into singles. You know what you have in Bayerlova at #1 singles, and there are good players on that roster (Ates is a dangerous #5), but this is the kind of match where the back half of the lineup should carry the weight. 

Blake is the first to win a set, 6-1 on Court 3. Gordon was up 5-0, but Bayerlova woke up and won the last two to try and stay alive. Stanford players are either up a break or on serve across the board.
1. Gordon leads 5-4 (was up 5-0, and now it's back on serve--yikes)
2. Arbuthnott leads 5-3
3. Blake leads 6-1, 0-1
4. Shin leads 5-1
5. Choy leads 5-2
6. Higuchi leads 5-2

It looked for a bit there that Gordon was going to be first off court. But at this rate, she won't figure into the scoring.

First sets, in order: 3, 4
1. Gordon leads 6-4, 0-0
2. Arbuthnott leads 5-4
3. Blake leads 6-1, 2-1
4. Shin leads 6-1, 1-0
5. Choy leads 6-2, 0-0
6. Higuchi leads 6-2, 0-0

First sets, in order: 3, 4, 5, 6, 1

After dropping four straight, Gordon breaks to take the set! Nice job resetting and fighting back.
1. Gordon leads 6-4, 0-0
2. Arbuthnott leads 6-4
3. Blake leads 6-1, 4-1
4. Shin leads 6-1, 1-1
5. Choy leads 6-2, 1-0
6. Higuchi leads 6-2, 1-0

First sets, in order: 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2

Blake is on fire right now.
Stanford 3, Washington State 0

1. Gordon leads 6-4, 3-3
2. Arbuthnott leads 6-4, 5-2
3. Blake wins 6-1, 6-1
4. Shin leads 6-1, 3-4 (down a break)
5. Choy wins 6-2, 6-0
6. Higuchi leads 6-2, 3-4 (down a break)

Choy sure worked quickly in that second set, but she couldn't quite catch Blake, who was first off court. Arbuthnott should end this pretty soon, as the other second sets are pretty tight.
And that's it! Arbuthnott wins 6-4, 6-2 and Stanford wins 4-0! Stanford books its ticket to Indoor Nationals in Chicago behind a very solid performance overall, and particularly impressive showings from Blake and Choy. And well done Arbuthnott for turning on the gas late with our other players still on court struggling in their second sets.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-26-2020

In these first two matches, Choy got two wins, and Gordon, Arbuthnott, Blake, and Higuchi each got one. Always nice to feel like the clincher could come from anywhere in the lineup. Shin started great today, and the errors piled up in the second set, so we don't know if she would've bounced back (or if Higuchi would've bounced back), but it's been a solid, balanced start to the season so far.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-27-2020

Joining Stanford as Pac-12 teams at Indoor Nationals are Arizona State (who beat Vanderbilt in what will be a very helpful non-conference win come the end of the season) and UCLA, who cruised through that regional.

In addition to Cal falling short, neither USC nor UW made it through that Seattle regional. Princeton upset UW 4-3 in the first round, and then upset USC in the second round. Princeton isn’t a bad team, mind you, but I am still stunned by that. 

Aside from Stanford, ASU, UCLA, Princeton, and host Illinois, here are the other qualifiers for Indoor Nationals:

* Texas
* Georgia Tech
* Georgia 
* Ohio State
* UVA
* Duke
* UNC
* Michigan
* N.C. State
* Pepperdine
* Florida State

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - oldalum - 01-27-2020

Does this mean we play Illinois first, then we play the winner of ASU-Texas?

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-27-2020

(01-27-2020, 12:53 AM)oldalum Wrote:  Does this mean we play Illinois first, then we play the winner of ASU-Texas?

Not necessarily, no. I used the term regional to give a better sense of what the local 4-team tournaments are, but it's not a true bracket. As I understand it, the top 8 teams advancing will be in one pot, with the other 8 teams in a second pot, and they'll do a draw for matchups. I can't recall when exactly they do the draw, but if memory serves, it's something like a day or two before play starts. So, if the same process holds for this year, we're looking at:

Seeded teams: #1 Stanford, #2 UNC, #3 Georgia, #4 UCLA, #5 Duke, #6 Pepperdine, #7 Texas, and #8 N.C. State
Unseeded teams: #14 Florida State, #15 Michigan, #20 Virginia, #25 Ohio State, #31 Illinois, #33 Princeton, #34 Arizona State, and #35 Georgia Tech

(Past #25, I used last year's final rankings, since the preseason team rankings only go to #25)

So, we could get anyone from that second pot in the first round, then we'd be scheduled for likely N.C. State in the quarterfinals, then UCLA/Duke in the semifinals, and UNC/Georgia/Pepperdine/Texas in the final--if we get that far, of course.

It's striking that the top 8 teams in this year's rankings all made if through, while there was a dropoff after that. As hosts, #9 Vanderbilt, #10 Oklahoma State, #13 South Carolina, #17 Washington, and #19 Kansas all failed to advance.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - oldalum - 01-27-2020

Cal did not do as badly as their 4-1 loss to Virginia might suggest. They beat #9 Kansas, then lost the doubles point to UVa by two 6-4 scores, and 5 of the singles matches went to 3 sets (the only 2-setter was a Cal victory).

We'll find out a lot more about our team in Chicago.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-27-2020

(01-27-2020, 09:49 AM)oldalum Wrote:  Cal did not do as badly as their 4-1 loss to Virginia might suggest. They beat #9 Kansas, then lost the doubles point to UVa by two 6-4 scores, and 5 of the singles matches went to 3 sets (the only 2-setter was a Cal victory).

We'll find out a lot more about our team in Chicago.

Got that right. The questions about Arbuthnott and Shin haven't been answered yet, though Arbuthnott's over WSU's Sato showed some reassuring toughness. Nice to see Blake looking impressive on Court 3, too, and Choy handled her business on Court 5. It's not out of the question that Shin and Choy might swap in the lineup if Shin continues to struggle and Choy continues to dominate. 

Choy's four sets so far: 6-0, 6-2, 6-2, 6-0. That ain't bad. Looking at it differently, here's each player's games won/lost so far:

Gordon: 21-11
Arbuthnott: 19-14
Blake: 20-7
Shin: 13-13
Choy: 24-4
Higuchi: 21-9


I think that's a useful metric, so I'll try tracking that this dual season to see how it goes. The team tracks won-loss record, but many matches aren't completed, and those give us insights into how a player is doing overall. So far, Choy is winning approximately 86% of games played, with Blake in second at 74%, then Higuchi at 70%, Gordon at about 66%, Arbuthnott at about 58%, and Shin at 50%. For what it's worth, I was always taught that where the losing player won 5 games in a two set match (i.e., a 6-2, 6-3 loss), that was the threshold for a competitive match--that equates to about 70% of games won. So, Choy and Blake are winning handily, Higuchi and Gordon on the border of competitiveness, and Arbuthnott and Shin are playing competitive matches.
FYI, we'll get new team rankings on January 29 and new singles/doubles rankings on February 5, so we'll have those numbers in advance of Indoor Nationals starting in Chicago on Friday, February 7.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-27-2020

For what it's worth, just four teams qualified for Indoor Nationals without dropping a point: Stanford, UCLA, Duke, and Texas. 

* Georgia Tech beat Purdue 4-0 and host South Carolina 4-1
* Arizona State needed a 4-2 win over Northwestern and a 4-3 win over Vanderbilt to do it, but hey, those are two great wins.
* Ohio State beat Wake Forest 4-0 and knocked off host Oklahoma State 4-3
* UVA beat Cal 4-1 and Tennessee 4-3
* UNC beat Auburn 4-0 and Old Dominion 4-1 (#2 Cameron Morra lost to #47 Holly Hutchinson at the #1 singles slot; shockingly, last year's #1, Makenna Jones, played #5 singles against Auburn and was on Court 6 for ODU! In the two previous matches, Jones played #3 singles)
* Michigan beat Ole Miss 4-2 and UCF 4-2
* N.C. State beat Rice 4-2 and Florida 4-0
* Pepperdine beat UNLV 4-0 and Arkansas 4-1 (Pepperdine lost the doubles point)
* Princeton beat UW 4-3 and USC 4-3
* Florida State beat UCSB 4-1 and Texas A&M 4-0
* Georgia beat Michigan State 7-0 and Notre Dame 5-2 (UGA lost on courts 3 and 4)

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-29-2020

New ITA team rankings are out, and as expected, we held at #1 and the top 8 were unchanged. Here's the full top 25, with us and teams on our schedule in bold:

1. Stanford (9 first-place votes)
2. UNC (3 first-place votes)
3. Georgia
4. UCLA
5. Duke
6. Pepperdine
7. Texas
8. N.C. State
9. Florida State (up 5)
10. Michigan (up 5)
11. Virginia (up 9)
12. Ohio State (up 13)
13. Vanderbilt (down 4)
14. Arizona State (up 20)
15. UCF (down 3)
16. Oklahoma State (down 6)
17. Princeton (up 16)
18. Texas A&M
19. USC (down 8)
20. Tennessee (up 2)
21. Cal (down 5)
22. Georgia Tech (up 13)
23. Washington (down 6)
24. Florida (down 3)
25. South Carolina (down 12)

Kansas (previously #19), Miami (previously #23), and Wake Forest (previously #24) drop out of the poll.

RE: Women's Tennis: ITA Kick-Off Weekend - ColoradoTree - 01-29-2020

A few notes from the other Pac-12 results at ITA Kick-Off Weekend that I found interesting:

* ASU's Lauryn John-Baptiste (who mostly played #2 singles for ASU last year) played #4 singles against Northwestern and Vanderbilt, behind last year's #3 (Kolarova) and #4 (Hampton). I'll be curious to see if that holds throughout the season, or if this was an attempt to stack the lineup with some plausible deniability. FWIW, against Northwestern, Hampton won at 2 and Kolarova was in a third-set tiebreak, and against Vanderbilt, both Hampton and Kolarova lost, but both matches were very competitive. So, might just be that John-Baptiste didn't improve as much as the others.

* UCLA rolled out the same lineup against Minnesota and Loyola Marymount: #14 Bolton (So.) at 1, #6 Forbes (Fr.) at 2, Altick (Jr.) at 3, #99 Goulak (Jr.) at 4, #108 Vagramov (Fr.) at 5, and Johnson (So.) at 6. Not sure what's up with #9 Jada Hart (R-Sr.), but as good as the UCLA lineup was, it's not as good as it could be with Hart playing 1 or 2 and pushing the others down.

* Cal's freshman class, which did so well in the fall season, was rewarded in their placement in the singles lineup. Last year's #1, #45 Julia Rosenqvist, keeps her spot, but freshman Haley Giavara (#21) and Valentina Ivanov (#20) enter the lineup at the 2 and 3 spots, respectively, and they did well, with Giavara giving Cal its only point against UVA and both winning against Kansas. #100 Anna Bright is fourth, and there's still some shuffling at the back end of the lineup, but last year's #3, Katerina Stloukalova, lost at #5 singles against UVA and was benched in singles for the Kansas match. Freshman Erin Richardson played #6 against UVA and #5 against Kansas.

* USC's lineup had some changes. Last year's #1, sophomore Salma Ewing, played #2 and #60 Angela Kulikov (Sr.) is now playing #1. Senior Sydney Van Alphen (ranked #68), who has struggled to crack the lineup and has mostly played at #6 when she has played, is now at #3, where she lost both matches handily. #70 Danielle Willson, last year's #5, is now at #4 and split her matches. Blue chip freshman Eryn Cayetano is at #5 and won both matches. Senior Constance Branstine lost both her matches at #6, and interestingly, her sister Carson (the #2 newcomer in the preseason rankings) didn't make the lineup. Preseason #109 Ana Neffa (Jr.), last year's #3 (with some significant time at #4, too) wasn't in the lineup, so whether she got passed or was hurt is unclear. But the lineup USC rolled out is not their best, assuming the younger Branstine and Neffa are both healthy.