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Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-04-2023

The first ITA team rankings of the year have dropped, and the Stanford women are tied for 8th with Georgia. Texas and UNC are 1 and 2, with Texas narrowly getting more first-place votes than the Tar Heels. Here's the top 25, with teams on Stanford's schedule in italics: 

1. Texas
2. UNC
3. N.C. State
4. Oklahoma
5. Texas A&M 
6. Duke
7. Virginia
T8. Stanford
T8. Georgia
10. Pepperdine
11. Miami
12. Cal
13. Oklahoma State
14. USC
15. Auburn
16. UCLA
17. Ohio State
18. Florida
19. Arizona State
T20. Michigan
T20. Vanderbilt
22. Iowa State
23. UCF
24. Tennessee
25. Georgia Tech

If Stanford gets past Kansas State and the Florida State/Arkansas winner at Kickoff Weekend, then there will be a few more top 15 teams on Stanford's schedule, which will be key for postseason seeding. Assuming we win a couple matches at Indoor Nationals, we should be in good shape for the postseason, but a lot rides on that. The ASU, Pepperdine, and Cal matches are at home, while the Texas, USC, and UCLA matches are on the road. Beating Texas in Austin would be the ultimate resume line, given the 10% bonus for winning on the road. 

Nothing on the schedule this weekend, but next weekend will be a couple of split-squad tournaments, the Freeman Memorial in Las Vegas and the Torero Tennis Classic in San Diego. The Freeman in particular usually attracts a pretty impressive entry list, so that should mean some good matches for our players.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-11-2023

Really interesting news from the NCAA, which has decided that starting in 2024*, the NCAA individual tennis championships will be held in the fall, while the NCAA team championships will still follow the traditional dual match season in the spring. This will be a 2-year pilot program for Division I only, and it will be for both men's and women's tennis. If the NCAA likes how it works, then I'd expect it to expand to other divisions. 

A big, big change that will force programs to adjust to what most top teams (Stanford not included) have already figured out--the fall season is a bigger deal than it ever was, and your players will need to be in top form if they want to compete for an individual title. That means more fall tournaments, more summer matches to prepare for those tournaments, and less of an individual break overall. It won't be much change for teams like UNC and Pepperdine and Texas and many others, but it will be a marked difference for how Stanford operates. Lele has kept her program to a relatively sedate pace in the fall compared to other top programs, so this will require some adjustment if Stanford is to position its players to have the best chance at qualifying for an individual title. 

How the ITA responds is another question. Right now, the fall season concludes with ITA Fall Nationals, a singles and doubles tournament, and ITA regionals populate that tournament. Will the new NCAA individual championships take the place of Fall Nationals? How do the various regional tournaments become affected? Will we see a "Spring Nationals" from the ITA instead, a tournament to take place after the team NCAA tournament has concluded? Or will there simply be one all-encompassing individual NCAA tournament each year? 

* This is based off a brief Andy Katz video report from the NCAA convention, so it's not entirely clear whether the change is in effect starting in calendar year 2024 or the 2024-25 academic year, and thus whether we have the 2023-24 season's individual championships in May and the 2024-25 season's individual championships 6 months later, or whether we'll see the 2023-24 season's individual championships get shifted six months earlier. But in any event, a new dynamic of "fall is for individual tennis, spring is for team tennis" is a really interesting change. It's always sort of been that way anyway, but the fall season has also been less essential in the past, and sometimes top players skip it and focus on pro tournaments, and sometimes programs like Stanford decide to deemphasize it. But with a NCAA individual title up for grabs at the end of the fall, that sort of deemphasizing may no longer be tenable.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-11-2023

With further clarification from the NCAA, it looks like it'll go like this:

Fall 2023: The traditional ITA tournaments
Spring 2024: Team and individual NCAA championships for 23-24
Fall 2024: Individual NCAA championships for 24-25
Spring 2025: Team NCAA championships for 24-25
Fall 2025: Individual NCAA championships for 25-26
Spring 2026: Team NCAA championships for 25-26
Fall 2026: Just the traditional ITA tournaments (unless pilot is extended)
Spring 2027: Team and individual NCAA championships for 26-27

But I suspect that it'll get extended. 68% of respondents to a committee poll favored the move, with a big reason being student-athlete welfare. If your team goes on a run and you're also in the individual tournament, it can be a grueling couple of weeks, leading to more injuries and withdrawals, and the hope is that the individual tournament is boosted by the change. So, most likely, this will be a permanent change.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - bbm233 - 01-11-2023

Question I should know the answer to: are there currently dual matches in the fall, or is it already just singles / doubles tournaments? If there are dual matches, I would expect those to go away and the fall to be more traditional tennis: a series of 32/64 player draws where the player's school is irrelevant - they are playing as an individual to get a ranking that qualifies them for NCAA's "slam."

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - BostonCard - 01-11-2023

Question... is this the best thing for individual athlete welfare?  I get the argument that for a team that goes on a run it can be a very grueling spring, but I feel at least that is concentrated.  Now you have basically a year-long sport (OK, I guess it always was, but now it will formally be that way).  That strikes me as not good for the athletes.

BC

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-12-2023

(01-11-2023, 04:33 PM)bbm233 Wrote:  Question I should know the answer to: are there currently dual matches in the fall, or is it already just singles / doubles tournaments? If there are dual matches, I would expect those to go away and the fall to be more traditional tennis: a series of 32/64 player draws where the player's school is irrelevant - they are playing as an individual to get a ranking that qualifies them for NCAA's "slam."

No dual matches, just singles/doubles tournaments (though there are the occasional exhibition dual matches like Stanford does when it takes a fall trip to Hawaii every year, but those aren't played like a dual match anyway, just a series of Hawaii vs. Stanford individual matches).
(01-11-2023, 07:20 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Question... is this the best thing for individual athlete welfare?  I get the argument that for a team that goes on a run it can be a very grueling spring, but I feel at least that is concentrated.  Now you have basically a year-long sport (OK, I guess it always was, but now it will formally be that way).  That strikes me as not good for the athletes.

BC

Right? The "this is for athlete welfare" argument really only applies to a narrow subset of tennis players, while now far more will play expanded fall seasons. I would think that would lead to more injuries, not fewer.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-13-2023

Normally with these January tournaments, we see more of an A squad and a B squad, but that's not the case this year. Heading to the Freeman Memorial in Las Vegas are Alexandra Yepifanova, Valencia Xu, Ana Geller, and Alexis Blokhina, while Connie Ma, Angelica Blake, Sara Choy, and Emma Sun head to San Diego. Interestingly, India Houghton doesn't appear to be going to either tournament (and, of course, Nicole Mossmer remains on the roster but hasn't played a match in years). 

Joining our players in Las Vegas will be players from #10 Pepperdine, #13 Oklahoma State, #16 UCLA, #18 Florida, and UNLV as host. There will be five different singles draws of eight players each as well as two doubles draws, so presumably they'll be balanced for competitiveness. Draws aren't publicly available for this one, and no live scoring or video that I can find, either. Ugh. That said, the general format of each day is doubles at 10am followed by singles. Assuming the draws are grouped by competitiveness, then this tournament is a real opportunity for Yepifanova and Blokhina in particular to show how they stack up against some of the nation's best, and it gives Xu and Geller a chance to show they've taken the next step. 

Meanwhile, in San Diego, our players will face off against players from LSU, UCSB, and host USD, and while none of those teams is ranked, there are some dangerous players there, like #7 Kylie Collins (LSU), #29 Solymar Colling (USD), #32 Anastasia Komar (LSU), #41 Kailey Evans (USD), and #49 Amelia Honer (USCB). We actually have draws there, too! It doesn't appear to be seeded, though, as Collins and Ma meet up in the first round and some other matchups appear engineered for competitiveness, so it's entirely possible this is a situation where you might see the top group of ranked players all play each other. Here are the San Diego match times today, and I'll update results as I find them out:

Doubles

9:00am: Choy/Sun vs. Cubitt/Vishwase (LSU)
9:00am: Blake/Ma vs. Goldsmith/Evans (USD)
10:00am: Honer/Reuter (UCSB) def. Blake/Ma 6-3
10:00am: Choy/Sun v. McBride/De Las Heras (USD)

Singles

11:30am: #11 Ma vs. #7 Collins (LSU)
11:30am: #45 Blake vs. #41 Evans (USD)
11:30am: Choy vs. Camille Kiss (UCSB)
1:00pm: Sun vs. Nina Geissler (LSU)

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - Softball Fan - 01-13-2023

I assume this is played outdoors.  Here is the San Diego weather forecast for Saturday:

Periods of rain. High 57F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch.

One good thing for Saturday the UV index will be 1 out of 10 so players won't need to put on sunscreen.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - Spiny_Norman - 01-14-2023

(01-13-2023, 02:21 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote:  Meanwhile, in San Diego, our players will face off against players from LSU, UCSB, and host USD, and while none of those teams is ranked, there are some dangerous players there, like #7 Kylie Collins (LSU), #29 Solymar Colling (USD), #32 Anastasia Komar (LSU), #41 Kailey Evans (USD), and #49 Amelia Honer (USCB). We actually have draws there, too! It doesn't appear to be seeded, though, as Collins and Ma meet up in the first round and some other matchups appear engineered for competitiveness, so it's entirely possible this is a situation where you might see the top group of ranked players all play each other. Here are the San Diego match times today, and I'll update results as I find them out:

Doubles

9:00am: Choy/Sun vs. Cubitt/Vishwase (LSU)
9:00am: Blake/Ma vs. Goldsmith/Evans (USD)
10:00am: Honer/Reuter (UCSB) def. Blake/Ma 6-3
10:00am: Choy/Sun v. McBride/De Las Heras (USD)

Singles

11:30am: #11 Ma vs. #7 Collins (LSU)
11:30am: #45 Blake vs. #41 Evans (USD)
11:30am: Choy vs. Camille Kiss (UCSB)
1:00pm: Sun vs. Nina Geissler (LSU)

The LSU doubles team defeated Choy/Sun 6-1
The USD doubles team defeated Blake/Ma 6-4

Ma dominated Collins 6-1, 6-0
Blake defeated Evans 2-6, 7-5, 6-3
Choy defeated Kiss 2-6, 6-4, 6-4
Sun lost a 3 setter to Geissler 4-6, 6-2, 6-7(6)

Results here - https://colleges.wearecollegetennis.com/Competitions/UniversityOfSanDiegoW/Tournaments/draws/F0FD63A1-82A9-42C0-927E-9569E0734AD4/D6DDA7AB-41DD-49C1-B7AC-7A3F5DC277AB

No results posted yet today. Maybe due to rain.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-16-2023

Looking just at San Diego (I'll have to pull Freeman results from other schools' Twitter feeds and official write-ups, as Stanford seemingly has no interest in providing that information), here's how things played out:

Friday singles (as Spiny noted)

#11 Ma def. #7 Collins 6-1, 6-0
#45 Blake def. #41 Evans 2-6, 7-5, 6-3
Choy def. Kiss 2-6, 6-4, 6-4
Sun lost to Geissler 4-6, 6-2, 6-7 (6-8 in the tiebreaker)

Saturday singles 

#11 Ma def. #29 Solymar Colling (USD) 6-4, 6-2
#45 Blake def. De Las Heras 5-7, 6-3, 10-5 (in a match tiebreaker)
Choy def. Safiya Carrington (LSU) 6-4, 6-3
Sun lost to Vishwase (LSU) 3-6, 2-6

Sunday singles

Unclear! Not posted. 

If that's all we get out of San Diego, here are some takeaways:

* We're still not very good at doubles, so nothing new there. 
* Ma absolutely handled a couple of top 30 players, including one in the top ten, so she seems ready to go.
* Blake lived up to her ranking and took care of business.
* Choy beat a couple of legitimately good players, suggesting she's ready to play a big role in her fifth spring with the team, or at least give us that sense of comfort we're used to at the #6 line.
* Emma Sun isn't quite ready for prime time. That's fine, she wasn't anticipated to feature in the lineup this year anyway. So, let's see how a year of playing under Lele helps her game grow.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-17-2023

Freeman results:

Singles:

A Quarterfinals:

#38 Yepifanova def. Molly Helgesson (UNLV), 6-2, 6-3
#44 Blokhina def. #94 Fangran Tian (UCLA), 6-1, 4-6, 6-3

A Semifinals:

#38 Yepifanova def. Carly Briggs (Florida) 6-4, 6-2 (Briggs has been ranked most of her career and had beaten #12 Janice Tjen of Pepperdine in the first round, so that's a nice win for Sasha)
Lisa Zaar (Pepp) def. Blokhina 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 (Zaar was the preseason #11 but pretty much played pro tournaments in the fall instead of ITA-sanctioned events, leading her to drop out of the rankings -- make no mistake, this tight of a match is a great sign for Blokhina)

A Finals:

Zaar def. Yepifanova 6-1, 6-4 (by contrast to the Blokhina result, this isn't a great result for Yepifanova--not saying she should've won, but she should've kept it closer)
Third place: Briggs def. Blokhina 6-5 (ret.) -- not sure what's ailing Blokhina, but with her marathon against Zaar, no sense in pushing through something with the dual season right around the corner, so even if it's nothing serious, retiring would be smart.

B Quarterfinals: Xu def. Bunyawi Thamchaiwat (Pepp) 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (Thamchaiwat is a former standout for Oklahoma State who transferred to San Diego State last year and is using her last year of eligibility at Pepperdine. She peaked inside the Top 25 a couple of years ago, but she's an excellent player, so that's a good win for Xu.)

B Semifinals: Xu lost to Florida's Alicia Dudenay, 2-6, 5-7. 

B Third place: Xu def. Ava Catanzarite (UCLA) 7-5, 6-0

C Quarterfinals: Geller lost to #108 Alana Wolfberg (Okla State) 6-4, 0-6, 2-6

C Consolation: Geller def. Cindy Hu (UNLV) 2-6, 6-3, 6-1

C Consolation: Geller lost to Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer 6-2, 6-3 (Lutkemeyer is a highly-touted freshman, so this isn't terrible, but still disappointing)

Doubles:

First match: 

Xu/Yepifanova def. #11 Wagle/Hance (UCLA) 7-5
Geller/Blokhina lost to Rojas/Gonzalez (Okla State) 2-6

Second match:

Xu/Yepifanova lost to Zaar/Thamchaiwat (Pepp) 3-6
Geller/Blokhina lost to Shelton/Williams (Florida) 6-7

Notes:

* Some nice performances from Yepifanova, Blokhina, and Xu, but also some disappointments there.
* Geller does not seem to have improved from last year's disappointing drop in form. I don't think you'll see her in the lineup much this year. If it were me, it would go Ma, Yepifanova, Blake, Blokhina, Xu, and Choy.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-19-2023

Dual match season kicks off today with UC Davis coming to town today at 2pm! 

How to watch: https://gostanford.com/sports/2022/3/17/womens-tennis-live-video-stats

The outcome shouldn't be in any doubt, but the most interesting information we'll see is what the lineup looks like. Under the rules, you need to set your lineup in order of ability, and you can only move a player one line per match, though injuries are a wild card. Given that our next match after Davis is ITA Kick-Off Weekend, what we see today should be Lele's best guess as to what our lineup ought to be. 

Normally I like to do more substantive previews of dual matches, focus on matchups, and the like. But if this isn't a breezy 7-0 win like usual against Davis, we've got some real problems. This is a warmup.  Now, sometimes it's interesting to see who treats it like a warmup and thus struggles when they shouldn't, and who brings it regardless, but the real news coming out of this match should be what the singles lineup is and who the doubles pairs are.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - ColoradoTree - 01-19-2023

As expected, Stanford takes the doubles point, but the lineups are different than I would've predicted:

1. Blake/Blokhina win 6-0
2. Xu/Yepifanova win 6-1
3. Choy/Ma win 6-2

But it's the singles lineup that shocked me:

1. Yepifanova, not Ma
2. Blokhina!
3. Ma
4. Blake
5. Xu
6. Choy

Xu and Choy at 5 and 6 is what I would've predicted, but I figured Blokhina would slot in behind Blake--having Blokhina above her isn't too big of a shock, though. The shock is Ma--who played #1 all last year, who made the NCAA singles final, who just woodshedded a couple of great players in San Diego--coming in at #3. The only thing I can think of is that Lele is using Yepifanova's defeat of Ma at Northwest Regionals as the reason to start the season with Sasha at #1, and while I think that's putting way too much weight on one match, when every other indicator in the world tells you that Ma is the better player, I can understand it--if only to give Sasha a chance to play at #1 singles on her home court. But Blokhina above Ma?! I can't understand it. And it means Ma can't play #1 next match either--the soonest she could return to that singles line is the third match of the year.
It's just above over, as Stanford leads 6-0 with just Court 6 in the balance. 

1. Yepifanova def. Gurevitch 6-2, 6-1
2. Blokhina def. Stavropolous 6-0, 6-3
3. Ma def. Mannupau 6-0, 6-0
4. Blake def. Evloeva 6-2, 6-0
5. Xu def. Zell, 6-1, 6-1
6. Choy leads Wolfe 6-0, 6-5

Choy looks to have had her changes to shut the door on this match, including a deciding point on Wolfe's serve that would've given Choy the match, but they play on. Seems as if she let her foot off the gas and Wolfe started to believe, and belief is a dangerous thing when you're playing a player you absolutely should beat. 

I wish someone covered Stanford tennis so they could ask Lele why--in the name of all that is holy--she played Ma at Court 3!

Sakibomb25 - Sakibomb25 - 01-19-2023

How do you think it’ll affect Ma moving forward? Do you think she’ll be a team player or do you think it might make her disengaged?

Super surprised about Blokhina, but not about Yepifanova.

RE: Sakibomb25 - ColoradoTree - 01-20-2023

(01-19-2023, 06:05 PM)Sakibomb25 Wrote:  How do you think it’ll affect Ma moving forward? Do you think she’ll be a team player or do you think it might make her disengaged?

Super surprised about Blokhina, but not about Yepifanova.

Just a guess, but I would think she'd be a team player about it--but also that she'll quickly regain the #1 spot. You watch them play, and she's a cut above. I wonder if it's a motivating tactic? (But then again, why? Ma had the better fall overall, as evidenced by her ranking. She had the better weekend at their respective tournaments. Maybe Lele has been sensing some complacency with Ma, though?) Could also just be an opportunity for Yepifanova to play #1 at home, something that might not come around too often for her. We'll see in a week when ITA Kickoff Weekend starts.

Kansas State is unranked, and the Wildcats have no ranked singles or doubles players, so whatever the lineup, we should be in good shape. But you'd think we'd want our first choice lineup for the Florida State/Arkansas match to decide who goes to Indoor Nationals. That said, neither FSU nor Arkansas is ranked, though both have a dangerous #1.

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - 2006alum - 01-20-2023

Thanks for these great updates! I don't know too much about collegiate tennis lineup strategery, but is there any chance putting Yepifanova and Blokhina at 1 and 2 against a pretty weak team maximizes their opportunities to test themselves against better players? To the degree Ma has been sailing through, a win vs. the UC Davis #1 would likely not test her much, but it might for the others?

RE: Women's Tennis: Team Rankings and January Tournaments - TheFarm07 - 01-20-2023

Much thanks to CT for the ongoing great updates! Along the same lines, what is Blokhina's ceiling? I know she's just a freshman but does she have the talent to match Ma and Yepifanova so that those three could potentially be seen as interchangeable on the top three lines one day?