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Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - ColoradoTree - 02-02-2023

All, the new rankings dropped yesterday, so this Saturday, it'll be the #6 Stanford Cardinal hosting the #8 Pepperdine Waves in what should be the best dual match in all of women's college tennis so far. 

Pepperdine in a nutshell:

#8 Pepperdine is 2-0, with their only matches so far coming on their home courts at ITA Kick-Off Weekend against Clemson and Memphis, two teams that finished outside the top 50 last year. But while we don't know that much about how they're playing as a team yet, we know they have a ton of individual talent: #12 Janice Tjen and #21 Savannah Broadus are ranked now in singles, and together they make up the 4th-ranked doubles pair. But look to the preseason rankings to get a better sense of the tennis world's view of their talent, as some players miss aspects of the fall season to play pro events or are ensuring they're healthy for spring, and you'll see six Waves: #11 Lisa Zaar, #32 Carolyn Campana, #36 Bunyami Thamchaiwat, #44 Tjen, #49 Broadus, and #84 Nikki Redelijk. 

Expected Lineups:

Assuming that our lineup looks like it did against Kansas State, because that's what confirms my priors, and Pepperdine goes with the same lineup as the last two matchups, here's how they'll likely match up:

Doubles:

1. Blake/Blokhina vs. Broadus/Tjen
2. Yepifanova/Xu vs. C. Campana/A. Campana
3. Choy/Ma vs. Redelijk/Zaar

Singles:

1. #11 Ma vs. #12 Tjen
2. #38 Yepifanova vs. Zaar (preseason #11)
3. #44 Blokhina vs. #21 Broadus
4. #45 Blake vs. Redelijk (preseason #84, so about 20 spots ahead of Blake's preseason ranking)
5. Xu vs. Carolyn Campana (preseason #32, a grad transfer from Wake Forest (playing #1 there) who previously played at Vanderbilt)
6. Choy vs. Anna Campana (a grad transfer from Wake like her sister; she mostly played #2 singles there)

Analysis

It'll be an absolute heavyweight bout. Sure, we're ranked a couple of spots higher, but that's not super meaningful, and in the individual matchups you might actually prefer Pepperdine on paper. But the match is at our place. This year, both Blokhina and Yepifanova played Zaar at the Freeman Memorial, with Blokhina losing in three competitive sets and Yepifanova losing more handily. At the same tournament, Xu beat Thamchaiwat in a third set tiebreaker, but it's unclear if Thamchaiwat is good to go. Last year in Malibu, Pepperdine rolled 4-1, with Zaar beating Yepifanova in straight sets, Tjen beating Blake at 3, and Iamachkine easily beating Choy at 6--Ma's 6-2, 6-2 win over the since-graduated Pachkaleva on Court 1 was the lone bright spot. A couple of years ago, though, Choy and Zaar had some absolute battles on Court 5, with both matches they played going to third sets, and FWIW, Higuchi beat Redelijk 6-2, 6-2. 

If this match were in Malibu, I'd pick Pepperdine. But it's here, so I won't. 4-3 Stanford, behind singles wins from Ma, Blake, and Choy, with the fourth point either coming from Blokhina or Xu. 

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

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - Spiny_Norman - 02-02-2023

Stanford has lost to Pepperdine 3 times in the last 2 years. This is a really big match. I hope it draws a big crowd.

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - ColoradoTree - 02-02-2023

(02-02-2023, 10:33 AM)Spiny_Norman Wrote:  Stanford has lost to Pepperdine 3 times in the last 2 years. This is a really big match. I hope it draws a big crowd.

Absolutely. Put another way, the last time the Stanford women beat Pepperdine was the spring of 2019 in the NCAA quarterfinals, on the way to Stanford's most recent national championship. And Pepperdine had beaten Stanford twice in a row before that. So they've had our number more often than not in recent years. Bruin and Trojan fans might get mad at me for saying this, but Pepperdine is the premier women's tennis program in southern California. They seem to reload with top transfers every single year. 

I don't want to put too much importance on this match, because our team tends to get stronger as the year goes on--it wasn't that long ago when we lost 7-0 to Vanderbilt in Nashville in the spring before beating Vanderbilt 4-3 to win the national championship. But a win here is a major confidence boost.

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - ColoradoTree - 02-04-2023

Doubles is on now, and it's competitive, but you'd rather be Pepperdine right now. 

1. Blake/Blokhina trail Tjen/Broadus 3-4
2. Yepifanova/Xu trail Zaar/Thamchaiwat 1-5
3. Choy/Ma lead Redelijk/Campana 3-1
1. Blake/Blokhina tied 5-5
2. Yepifanova/Xu lost 3-6 
3. Choy/Ma lead 4-3

Looks like Pepperdine called an injury time-out on Court 1 with Blokhina serving up 5-4 and 40-15. Some strategery, I imagine, since they looked entirely fine. Blokhina looked VERY salty having to wait. But then Blokhina dumps a forehand into the net for 40-30, and then Pepperdine won the point to get to deciding point, which they took, so I guess that tactic worked, as they seem to have successfully gotten in Blokhina's head. Some bush league garbage, though. If we end up losing this match 4-3, then remember this moment that seems pivotal to taking the doubles point.
Ugh, we had break point on Court 1, but Blokhina had it absolutely on a tee but dumped it into the net. But then we broke on deciding point for a 6-5 lead! Blake will serve for that match! And meanwhile, Choy/Ma lead 5-4, and Ma will serve next for that match. It's all very tight, but the doubles point is on our racket right now. Just gotta win both.
And Pepperdine takes deciding point on Court 1, so it's a tiebreaker. And Ma is broken for 5-5. Dang.
Then we were up a break point on Court 3, but Pepperdine holds to go up 6-5 there. Choy will serve to force a tiebreak.

Looks like Pepperdine is up 6-5 in the tiebreaker on Court 1 and they'll have two serves now. We win the first for 6-6 as they change ends! But it looks like it won't matter as Pepperdine goes up 40-0 on Choy's serve....
And Pepperdine leads 1-0 after taking the doubles point. Court 1 was abandoned with Blake/Blokhina up 7-6 in the tiebreaker and about to serve two. Sigh. Now we'll have to find four singles wins against this lineup, which, well, good luck.

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - ColoradoTree - 02-04-2023

Pepperdine 1, Stanford 0

Our lineup is what I thought it would be coming into the season, while Pepperdine welcomes back Thamchaiwat as she slots into the #4 line and pushes Redelijk to 5 and Carolyn Campana to 6. 

1. Ma vs. Tjen
2. Yepifanova vs. Zaar
3. Blake vs. Broadus
4. Blokhina vs. Thamchaiwat
5. Xu vs. Redelijk
6. Choy vs. C. Campana

It will be really hard to get four singles wins. Like, super hard. Just to set expectations appropriately. I know it's what I predicted, but it's entirely possible I was overly optimistic!
Aaaaand it's raining.
Here's where things stand while the match is paused.

1. Ma leads Tjen 2-1, 15-15
2. Yepifanova leads Zaar 2-1, and has deciding point on her serve
3. Blake trails 0-3, 30-0
4. Blokhina trails 1-2, 40-30
5. Xu is tied 1-1, leads 40-30 in the game
6. Choy trails Campana 1-2

Still very early.

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - Spiny_Norman - 02-04-2023

Match cancelled.

[twitter]https://twitter.com/StanfordWTennis/status/1622009814737125378[/twitter]

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - martyup - 02-04-2023

That's got to be bad for our ranking.  Right?

RE: Women's Tennis vs. Pepperdine - ColoradoTree - 02-06-2023

(02-04-2023, 05:03 PM)martyup Wrote:  That's got to be bad for our ranking.  Right?

Eh, it's not terrible. A loss wouldn't have cost much and a win would've been amazing, but it looked like our backs were against the wall. So, if what we take from this is that we need to get better and we need to play better in doubles if we want to win close matches against elite teams. And we do that without having taken even a minimal hit to our ranking. 

On the other hand, if we were going to get four singles wins before the rain intervened, I'm bummed we didn't have the chance to do that, because that kind of win would have been the ideal leadup to Indoor Nationals. 

But it means every tough match we play from here on out has that slight additional bit of importance because we only have so many of them on the schedule.