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Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-11-2023

We've still got about a week and a half before the Stanford women's tennis team plays its first match of the fall, but we've got preseason ITA rankings and some preseason success to digest, so let's dive in!

The preseason rankings dropped, and based solely on those, we should be one of the precious few teams with a reasonable shot at challenging for a national title. Here are the rankings below, with Pac-12 teams and ACC teams (in italics) included, so you get a sense of the outgoing competition versus the incoming:

ITA Preseason Singles Rankings:

1. Fiona Crawley (UNC)
3. Alexa Noel (Miami)
4. Fangran Tian (UCLA)
5. Reese Brantmeier (UNC)
9. Carol Lee (GT)
10. Amelia Rajecki (NC State)
14. Angelica Blake
19. Carson Tanguilig (UNC)
21. Alexandra Yepifanova
26. Connie Ma
28. Kylie Bilchev (GT)
30. Abbey Forbes (UNC)
31. Annika Yarlagadda (UNC)
36. Emma Jackson (Duke)
38. Eryn Cayetano (USC)
39. Ozlem Uslu (VT)
43. Natasha Subhash (UVA)
44. Casie Wooten (WF)
47. Jessica Alsola (Cal)
52. Isabella Pfennig (Miami)
53. Page Freeman (ND)
54. Alexis Blokhina
55. Anna Arkadianou (FSU)
62. Maria Aguiar (BC)
63. Hadley Doyle (SMU)
65. Victoria Allen (FSU)
66. Kimmi Hance (UCLA)
68. Elizabeth Scotty (UNC)
71. Annabelle Xu (UVA)
72. Abigail Rencheli (NC State)
73. Julia Andreach (ND)
76. Reilly Tran (UNC)
78. Chelsea Fontenel (ASU)
81. Mahak Jain (GT)
84. Giulia Morlet (ASU)
85. Hibah Shaikh (UVA)
86. Eleni Louka (Clemson)
87. Alejandra Cruz (GT)
95. Ellie Schoppe (FSU)
96. Leonie Schuknect (Miami)
98. Katja Wiersholm (Cal)
100. Elaine Chervinsky (UVA)
101. Daniella Medvedeva (Clemson)
102. Viktoriya Kanapatskaya (Syracuse)
107. Sophie Edwards (BC)
110. Sophie Abrams (NC State)
111. Brianna Shvets (Duke)
115. Sarah-Maude Fortin (UW)
118. Valencia Xu 
123. Christina Mayorova (Clemson)

ITA Preseason Freshman/Newcomer Rankings:

2. Katherine Hui
4. Eleana Yu
5. Emilija Tverijonaite (ASU)

Quick Rankings Thoughts

So, just based on rankings alone, we have 5 returning singles players ranked and two of the top 5 incoming freshmen. No one else in the Pac-12 is close, and we go into the season as the clear favorite for the conference title, though certainly USC and UCLA seem underrepresented in the rankings given the talent they have, so they won't be easy outs. 

Also... my goodness, the sheer number of names in italics! The ACC is one of the two dominant forces in women's tennis at a conference level, along with the SEC. Joining the ACC will mean much more difficult matches for our players, and it's one of the brightest silver linings of landing with the ACC versus another potential conference destination. (The Big Ten would have been preferable for lots of reasons, but women's tennis sure as heck isn't one of them.)

* UNC has seven ranked singles players, and as the reigning national champion that returns everyone, they're obviously the team to beat. 
* Michigan surprisingly has 6, plus the #8 newcomer, but then again they finished ranked 6th last year, so it's not a total shock. 
* Joining Stanford with 5 returning ranked players is Texas A&M, which also has the #3 newcomer.
* Last year's national runner-up, Georgia, has just 3 ranked players after losing #1 Lea Ma and #5 Meg Kowalski to graduation, but the Bulldogs also have the #1 and #6 newcomers, so that's more of a reload than a rebuild, but they still might take a small step back.
* I'll get to Katherine Hui's news in the next post since this one is running long!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-11-2023

Good to do this in a separate post anyway, because Katherine Hui deserves her flowers, but as an unseeded wildcard, she bulldozed through the draw to win the U.S. Open girls' title while nearby, Coco Gauff won the women's title. She didn't drop a set all tournament, and the final was the closest match she played, a 6-4, 6-4 win. 

Match highlights and a good match recap at this link: https://www.wtatennis.com/news/3678845/hui-claims-us-open-junior-title

Of note, she beat four of the tournament's top 10 seeds on her way to the title, including #2 Lucciana Perez Alarcon in the Round of 32, 6-4, 6-0. Perez Alarcon is the #3 ranked newcomer, headed to Texas A&M, so this may not be the last time they play. 

Congratulations, Katherine!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - old spanish trail - 09-11-2023

Thanks, CT. Totally agree re ACC. I hadn't focused previously on how many ACC schools have juggernaut teams.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-11-2023

Just where we can expect to see Hui and Yu in the lineup will be interesting, especially given the rankings' projection that not only is Yepifanova ahead of Ma, but Blake may have surpassed her as well. (I don't think that's actually happened, and I think Blake is getting a little extra juice in the rankings from her run to the quarterfinals in last year's NCAA singles tournament.) 

Here's a recap of their junior accomplishments from the official site a few days ago: https://gostanford.com/news/2023/9/5/womens-tennis-womens-tennis-adds-hui-yu.aspx

As a reminder, Hui was generally viewed as the #2 recruit in the country (and in our class) behind Yu, who didn't enter the girls' tournament at the U.S. Open. She has preferred to play in lower-level professional tournaments over the past few months, though she hasn't met with much success. But Yu has always been that girl, having been ranked as the #1 recruit each year of high school and having made the US Open main draw in last year's tournament, whereas Hui was seen as a top 5 recruit but never hit the top spot until her senior year (though Yu later overtook her again). 

I'm going to operate under the assumption that, despite the ITA ranking, Yu remains ahead of Hui in the pecking order, but where exactly they land will be curious to see. But I think they're both too good not to play, which means that it's going to be very difficult for seniors Ana Geller and India Houghton (or sophomore Emma Sun) to crack the singles lineup, and it might mean Valencia Xu falls out of the lineup. Here's a guess:

1. Yepifanova
2. Ma
3. Blake
4. Yu
5. Blokhina
6. Hui

And I wouldn't be shocked if Yu is in the top 3. Or if Hui pushes Blokhina to the #6 court. But one of Blokhina, Xu, Yu, and Hui won't be in the lineup, and I think that'll be Xu. Honestly, if we play UNC or someone like that, we should stage some matches between our respective 7-8-9 players. The depth is just bonkers, and the internal competition for lineup spots should be fierce. I'm pumped for it. 

Getting a national championship this year would also keep our streak alive of each class winning a national championship for the past I'm-not-gonna-look-it-up-but-it's-a-lot-of years, since Blake is using her covid year for a final shot at a championship.
(09-11-2023, 12:19 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:  Thanks, CT. Totally agree re ACC. I hadn't focused previously on how many ACC schools have juggernaut teams.

So, in last year's final team rankings, here's the Pac-12 (bold), ACC (italics), and SEC in the top 25:

1. UNC
2. Georgia
3. Texas A&M
4. N.C. State
5. Stanford
7. Texas*
11. Duke
12. Virginia
13. Oklahoma*
14. Tennessee
15. Florida
16. Miami
17. Auburn
18. UCLA
20. Georgia Tech
21. Washington
24. Florida State
25. USC

With USC/UCLA departing the Pac-12, we'd already been consigned to a mid-major level as far as tennis is concerned even if the conference had held together. so it's going to be a whole new world starting next year. A drastically tougher conference slate, and other teams like Wake and Notre Dame that can absolutely push you (and beat you on a bad day) in a way that we don't get from Oregon, Colorado, Wazzu, and Arizona. (ASU is a good team and will be one of the better ones along with Oklahoma State in the new-look Big 12, though the cream of that conference is departing for the SEC.)

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-11-2023

The fall schedule will get going in a week and a half or so with the Battle of the Bay hosted by USF, which should see some of the top teams in the country for some invitational action, with other fall invitationals and the usual regional/national tournaments dotting the landscape:

Sept. 21-24: Battle of the Bay (San Francisco, CA)
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Cal Invitational (Berkeley, CA)
Sept. 30-Oct. 8: Fall ITA All-American Championships (Cary, NC)
Oct. 13-17: ITA Northwest Regionals (Stanford, CA)
Oct. 26-29: St. Mary's Invitational (Moraga, CA)
Nov. 2-5: ITA Fall Championships (San Diego, CA)

A couple quick notes on those tournaments:

ITA Fall All-Americans 

This is a great fall tournament that generally has all of the top players in the country, so it's a great measuring stick heading into the spring season. There are three stages, the main draw, the qualifying draw, and the pre-qualifying draw (which sees 12 players get into the qualifying draw, which in turn sees 8 players qualify for the main draw). The pre-qualifying starts on September 30 and the qualifying draw starts on October 2, so I would expect something of a mixed bag at the Cal Invitational. Any players involved in qualifying or pre-qualifying would likely skip it, while the folks involved in the main draw and the players at the bottom of the roster could still go. 

If I understand the selection criteria correctly, I believe Angelica Blake would be in the main draw as the top-ranked player from the Northwest Region, while Alexandra Yepifanova should join her as a returning All-American. Connie Ma and Alexis Blokhina should then be in the qualifying draw as regional representatives, and Valencia Xu, Eleana Yu, and Katherine Hui would be no worse than the pre-qualifying round. 

ITA Northwest Regionals

I love this tournament that Stanford hosts every year. The entire roster competes against teams in the rest of our region (which includes Cal, UW, Oregon, St. Mary's, Fresno State, UC Davis, etc.), and the two singles finalists qualify for Fall Nationals. We tend to do very well, and it's often the case that both finalists come from Stanford. (On especially good years, we have all four semifinalists, too!) The seeding for this tournament is a good clue as to how our head coach, Lele Forood, views the internal pecking order in our roster, and it's usually our first chance to see where the incoming freshmen stack up.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - TheFarm07 - 09-11-2023

Not to be too presumptous, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that it's good to have you back ColoradoTree!

We miss your insights and analyses at the end of last season. We were sorry to hear that personal matters pulled you away and wish the best for you going forward.

Thank you for the preview and looking forward to your thoughtful posts!
(09-11-2023, 12:24 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote:  Just where we can expect to see Hui and Yu in the lineup will be interesting, especially given the rankings' projection that not only is Yepifanova ahead of Ma, but Blake may have surpassed her as well. (I don't think that's actually happened, and I think Blake is getting a little extra juice in the rankings from her run to the quarterfinals in last year's NCAA singles tournament.) 

Here's a recap of their junior accomplishments from the official site a few days ago: https://gostanford.com/news/2023/9/5/womens-tennis-womens-tennis-adds-hui-yu.aspx

As a reminder, Hui was generally viewed as the #2 recruit in the country (and in our class) behind Yu, who didn't enter the girls' tournament at the U.S. Open. She has preferred to play in lower-level professional tournaments over the past few months, though she hasn't met with much success. But Yu has always been that girl, having been ranked as the #1 recruit each year of high school and having made the US Open main draw in last year's tournament, whereas Hui was seen as a top 5 recruit but never hit the top spot until her senior year (though Yu later overtook her again). 

I'm going to operate under the assumption that, despite the ITA ranking, Yu remains ahead of Hui in the pecking order, but where exactly they land will be curious to see. But I think they're both too good not to play, which means that it's going to be very difficult for seniors Ana Geller and India Houghton (or sophomore Emma Sun) to crack the singles lineup, and it might mean Valencia Xu falls out of the lineup. Here's a guess:

1. Yepifanova
2. Ma
3. Blake
4. Yu
5. Blokhina
6. Hui

And I wouldn't be shocked if Yu is in the top 3. Or if Hui pushes Blokhina to the #6 court. But one of Blokhina, Xu, Yu, and Hui won't be in the lineup, and I think that'll be Xu. Honestly, if we play UNC or someone like that, we should stage some matches between our respective 7-8-9 players. The depth is just bonkers, and the internal competition for lineup spots should be fierce. I'm pumped for it. 

Getting a national championship this year would also keep our streak alive of each class winning a national championship for the past I'm-not-gonna-look-it-up-but-it's-a-lot-of years, since Blake is using her covid year for a final shot at a championship.
(09-11-2023, 12:19 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:  Thanks, CT. Totally agree re ACC. I hadn't focused previously on how many ACC schools have juggernaut teams.

So, in last year's final team rankings, here's the Pac-12 (bold), ACC (italics), and SEC in the top 25:

1. UNC
2. Georgia
3. Texas A&M
4. N.C. State
5. Stanford
7. Texas*
11. Duke
12. Virginia
13. Oklahoma*
14. Tennessee
15. Florida
16. Miami
17. Auburn
18. UCLA
20. Georgia Tech
21. Washington
24. Florida State
25. USC

With USC/UCLA departing the Pac-12, we'd already been consigned to a mid-major level as far as tennis is concerned even if the conference had held together. so it's going to be a whole new world starting next year. A drastically tougher conference slate, and other teams like Wake and Notre Dame that can absolutely push you (and beat you on a bad day) in a way that we don't get from Oregon, Colorado, Wazzu, and Arizona. (ASU is a good team and will be one of the better ones along with Oklahoma State in the new-look Big 12, though the cream of that conference is departing for the SEC.)

Two questions from your preview:

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - BobK - 09-11-2023

I’m sure we all feel the same Thanks CT

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - martyup - 09-12-2023

I wouldn't be following Stanford tennis if it wasn't for CT's posts.  Thank you ColoradoTree.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-12-2023

Good question on junior tournaments/slams versus D1 tennis. Fundamentally, D1 tennis is just a higher level, as junior events are all 18 and under, and D1 players are necessarily a bit older. Now, some of the names that pop up as elite junior players sometimes translate to the top of the collegiate rankings, sure, but it's also hit or miss. I think one of the highest-ranked players according to the ITF junior rankings that has come to Stanford in recent years is Ana Geller, and her collegiate career to date hasn't justified those rankings.

They're young, you know? And development isn't linear and some kids get to a higher level earlier and then plateau, whereas other kids continue to grow. (Ma was unquestionably ahead of Yepifanova when they arrived here and throughout their freshman year, but Yepifanova seemed to overtake her last year. I still think Ma is the better player, but there are mental aspects to the grind of a season that she needs to master.)

There's also a player choice element to it. Some players choose to play lower-grade professional tournaments (that's what Yu did this past summer, with little success, and what Blokhina mostly did her last year before college) for the opportunity to play against women rather than girls. 

And for others, it's a stage of their careers that they move past. Blokhina won a couple matches there in 2021, I believe, but Yepifanova's run to the U.S. Open girls' finals was when she was 16, whereas Hui is an 18-year-old high school graduate. 

Ultimately, it's rare for even highly-touted prospects to jump into an elite D1 team's lineup at the top. Michaela Gordon did it, but before her, it had been many years at Stanford. And yes, Connie Ma did it two years ago now (and with Yepifanova jumping in at 2, it was doubly shocking). Yu and Hui might be at the level that Ma/Yepifanova were two years ago, but that's two years of tough college matches, physical development, and mental growth that they haven't had the opportunity to get yet. They'll certainly leapfrog some players, but they're not gonna leapfrog those two. And with how Blake's game has come along, I don't think they'll get over her, either. (They might. Or one of them might. We'll see! Team tennis is a great meritocracy, and eventually better players will climb that ladder.)

My guess that Yu remains above Hui in the pecking order is really just that--a guess. It's informed by four years of being the unquestioned top recruit, but form matters a great deal in tennis, and Yu hasn't won much this summer while Hui has been on a tear. 

Getting two recruits this good into the team can also have a galvanizing effect on players who'd previously felt secure in their lineup spots. How does Blokhina step up her game? How does Xu? The prospect of being out of the top six could have led those two to work very hard this summer. (Blokhina has been playing pro tournaments all summer, with mixed success, whereas I can't see any matches from Xu.) And what about Geller, Houghton, or Emma Sun? They've already been on the outside looking in, so does the prospect of falling further behind lead them to take a step? (Houghton played a couple of overseas ITF tournaments this summer and did OK, whereas I don't see matches from Geller or Sun. Note: the lack of tournament play doesn't mean they're not working, and perhaps they're focusing more on training, practice, and tweaking things in their games that way.)

Now, as far as how we stack up against the best teams in the country, I think we're right there. You have to put UNC as the clear favorite up top. But then I think there's a group of teams in the next tier down, and we're in that tier (along with Texas A&M, Georgia, Texas, and Michigan). NC State beat us handily in last year's NCAAs, but they lose their top two players, so I think they take a step back. Texas loses its #1 as well, but they return everyone else and they add Old Dominion's #1, a top 20 preseason player in Tanya Sasnouskaya, so that's a great bit of reloading on the fly from them. Similarly, Georgia lost its #1 in Lea Ma and its #5, but the Bulldogs also have the #4 incoming recruiting class, plus the #1 and #6 newcomers. (Note: those rankings issued before Georgia signed Alexandra Vecic, an accomplished German who is the #1 newcomer. So, while Stanford formally has the #1 class, I'd put Georgia's class with Vecic ahead of ours, as good as ours is.) N.C. State also has a highly-ranked class coming in, but I tend to think it's more quantity than elite quality at the top, so I don't see an ace coming in. 

We're a clearer favorite in the Pac-12 than I think we've been in a few years, too, though ASU and USC are dangerous and UCLA is always a threat. I think both UCLA and USC (which lost Maddy Sieg to the pro ranks) are good enough to beat us depending on the day, but just looking at the roster, we should win. And we get them at home this year, too, so that'll certainly help. (CU and Utah are the other home conference matches; we'll get Cal, UW/WSU, and UA/ASU on the road.)

As far as non-conference matches, I'd expect to see Pepperdine, and they're a contender every year. We were supposed to play them at home last year, but the match was cancelled, so we'll see if we get that home match again or if we're on the road. We've also been playing Texas annually in recent years, so that should be another great early challenge. And provided we qualify (and we should--our Kickoff Weekend opponents of Colorado and the winner of Maryland-UNLV all finished last season ranked #52 or worse), we should get a good sense of where we are at Indoor Nationals in February.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - StanfordMatt - 09-12-2023

I don't follow our women's team nearly as closely as I do the men but I would echo CT's sentiments regarding junior rankings. There is no need to look futher for a clear example than Ana's brother, Axel Geller.

I'm not familiar with Ana's junior career, but when Axel arrived at Stanford in 2018 he was the #1 ranked junior in the world. Many expected him to back out of his Stanford commitment and go pro. He was fresh off of a Wimbledon doubles title and had reached the singles finals at both the US Open and Wimbledon (where he lost a tight match to current #21 in the ATP Alejandro Davidovich Fokina). Naively, I expected him to mop up his college competition with 6-0, 6-0 scorelines as he cruised to multiple NCAA individual titles. This could not have been further from the case. To put it mildly, his college playing career was an abject failure considering his junior accolades. He barely cracked the NCAA top 100 in singles ranking his freshman year and by his grad year he had fallen to #3 in the singles lineup for a team that was decidedly mediocre by Stanford's historical standards.

I hope Hui does not follow a similar trajectory!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - fullmetal - 09-12-2023

What was the issue in Axel's case?  Stresses of college coursework?  Or increase responsibilities of young adulthood?  Hopefully it wasn't coaching/skills issues...

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-12-2023

I realize I forgot about the USTA 18's singles tournament in August, where Hui beat Yu in the semifinals in three sets, so that's certainly another data point in Hui's favor. But Yu withdrew from the subsequent third place match due to injury, so I've got a bit of an asterisk next to that result. It could mean that Yu was limited in her match against Hui but gutted it out (and that if both were fully healthy, it might lean the other way), or it could mean that Yu was 100% against Hui but withdrew from a relatively meaningless match because she was a bit sore and didn't want to risk injury. As I'll remind you throughout the fall season, withdrawals due to injury only sometimes indicate "real" injuries. The fall season counts for individual rankings, but players and coaches are often exceedingly cautious since you want to ensure availability for the matches that really count in the spring. (I'm not suggesting that players withdraw for completely fictitious injuries; I'm just saying that the slightest of muscle pulls/strains or soreness that might be consistent with a minor injury will lead a player to back out of invitational matches when they'd play through something similar in the spring. It is a sensible approach, and one I support.) 

Interestingly, that semifinal round had three of four players with Stanford ties. You had the top two recruits in the 2023 class (Yu and Hui) on one side, and you had the top two recruits in the 2024 class on the other side--the #2 player, Valerie Glozman of Bellevue, Washington, has verbally committed to Stanford and is currently our lone commit in that class. The ultimate tournament winner was the fourth player, Clervie Ngounoue, but it's unclear whether she'll go the college tennis route or go pro. 

In that tournament, Hui knocked off #2 seed Reese Brantmeier of UNC (who somehow was still eligible for an 18u tournament since she graduated from high school a year early) in a close quarterfinal, 7-6, 7-6. And for her part, Yu beat two other top incoming freshmen, Florida's Qavia Lopez (the #7 newcomer) in the round of 16 and Michigan's Piper Charney (the #8 newcomer) in the quarterfinals, so that's a round of good results for our two newcomers. 

That Brantmeier result makes me think some things. Good things. Optimistic things. I'm going to rashly revise my projected top 6 as follows:

1. Yepifanova
2. Ma
3. Blake
4. Hui
5. Yu
6. Blokhina

Alexis Blokhina at 6 is just unfair. But so would Yu or Hui. And here's hoping Valencia Xu doesn't take this lying down either. 

I said above that we're in the mix this year. I just want to reiterate that our shot is very, very real. I think we should be the #2 team in the country behind North Carolina heading into the spring season.

Sakibomb25 - Sakibomb25 - 09-12-2023

Who else do you see us going after besides Glozman in the Class of 24? Saw a bit of Hui vs. Glozman - Glozman had a two-handed forehand. Reminded me of Seles (not saying she played at Seles’ level, but you don’t see two-handed forehands often!).

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - TheFarm07 - 09-12-2023

(09-12-2023, 01:34 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote:  That Brantmeier result makes me think some things. Good things. Optimistic things. I'm going to rashly revise my projected top 6 as follows:

1. Yepifanova
2. Ma
3. Blake
4. Hui
5. Yu
6. Blokhina

Alexis Blokhina at 6 is just unfair. But so would Yu or Hui. And here's hoping Valencia Xu doesn't take this lying down either. 

I said above that we're in the mix this year. I just want to reiterate that our shot is very, very real. I think we should be the #2 team in the country behind North Carolina heading into the spring season.

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed reply! Always appreciated. Well, even though Blokhina at #6 would be a tremendous advantage against most teams, it sounds like with the other recruits coming in for other teams, that is an attribute we would need to beat a Georgia or UNC.

RE: Sakibomb25 - ColoradoTree - 09-13-2023

(09-12-2023, 03:07 PM)Sakibomb25 Wrote:  Who else do you see us going after besides Glozman in the Class of 24? Saw a bit of Hui vs. Glozman - Glozman had a two-handed forehand. Reminded me of Seles (not saying she played at Seles’ level, but you don’t see two-handed forehands often!).

No idea! There are precious few blue chips left who haven't made a verbal commitment yet, and in terms of the current rankings, here they are:

1. Clervie Ngounoue (DC)
3. Kaitlin Quevedo (Naples, FL)
16. Kate Fakih (Pasadena, CA)

Both Ngounoue and Quevedo have seemed intent on the pro route, so if we're going to add a difference-maker to the class, it would come in the form of an international player (and I have no idea how to predict those). 

That said, we're a bit oversubscribed at the moment anyway, so it's not clear we really need a second player in the class. 

We'll lose Blake, Houghton, and Geller after this season, but that still leaves the following lineup in place for next year:

1. Yepifanova (Sr.)
2. Ma (Sr.)
3. Hui (So.)
4. Yu (So.)
5. Blokhina (Jr.)
6. Xu (Sr.)

And that would see Emma Sun (Jr.) and Valerie Glozman (Fr.) on the bench. Our depth wouldn't be as earth-shattering, sure, but in terms of your top six, that's just as good a team. The risk, of course, is that you see a further three players depart the following year, with the terrific class of Ma/Yepifanova/Xu departing, so you'd need a particularly good class the following year. And we can likely get that, as the prospect of early playing time high in the lineup is a better bet with Ma/Yepifanova leaving, so we become a more attractive option for certain players. If we don't want another 3-player freshman class, then perhaps we add a third player in the form of a grad transfer. It's a rare thing for Stanford, I know, but women's tennis is one of those sports where there seem to be more impact grad transfers with elite academic records than others. 

I also don't understand how our current roster is NCAA-compliant, since it's an 8-scholarship headcount sport, and I see 10 scholarship players on the roster. Maybe Blake's doesn't count because it's a bonus covid year? But that still means that somewhere on this roster is a player paying her own way, and they're all blue chips. (If I had to guess, it would be Sun, as the least-heralded recruit in the bunch, but that's all relative--she was still plenty-heralded.)

Anyway, you can tell from the classes we have that our championship window is wide open this year and next year. The problem, of course, is those pesky other elite teams with their own stacked rosters.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - StanfordMatt - 09-13-2023

(09-12-2023, 01:27 PM)fullmetal Wrote:  What was the issue in Axel's case?  Stresses of college coursework?  Or increase responsibilities of young adulthood?  Hopefully it wasn't coaching/skills issues...

I'm not in a poisition to judge but if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was probably a combination of factors. First, as CT alluded to, junior rankings don't necessarily translate to D1 success. There's probably some differences between genders to this point as men/boys develop along different timelines than women/girls but examples from both genders seem to bear this out.

Second, for as great as the college experience may be for an individual's holisitic development, it's pretty clear imo that it's not ideal for developing the best tennis player possible. When I was loosely affiliated with the men's program many years ago, it was not uncommon to see Gould's players play their best tennis in their freshman year and then slowly go downhill from there. Whether this was attributable to SAE, academics, social stress or just no longer spending 8 hours on the court every day I couldn't say. For some reason, though, Amber Liu and Lele's gals didn't seem to have this problem lol. To Axel's credit, though, he was a 2x Academic All-American and the PAC-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year which is more important than success on the court, especially once it became apparent that he wasn't going to enjoy a serious professional career.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - Sakibomb25 - 09-13-2023

(09-13-2023, 10:01 AM)StanfordMatt Wrote:  
(09-12-2023, 01:27 PM)fullmetal Wrote:  What was the issue in Axel's case?  Stresses of college coursework?  Or increase responsibilities of young adulthood?  Hopefully it wasn't coaching/skills issues...

I'm not in a poisition to judge but if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was probably a combination of factors. First, as CT alluded to, junior rankings don't necessarily translate to D1 success. There's probably some differences between genders to this point as men/boys develop along different timelines than women/girls but examples from both genders seem to bear this out.

Second, for as great as the college experience may be for an individual's holisitic development, it's pretty clear imo that it's not ideal for developing the best tennis player possible. When I was loosely affiliated with the men's program many years ago, it was not uncommon to see Gould's players play their best tennis in their freshman year and then slowly go downhill from there. Whether this was attributable to SAE, academics, social stress or just no longer spending 8 hours on the court every day I couldn't say. For some reason, though, Amber Liu and Lele's gals didn't seem to have this problem lol. To Axel's credit, though, he was a 2x Academic All-American and the PAC-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year which is more important than success on the court, especially once it became apparent that he wasn't going to enjoy a serious professional career.
It's interesting you mention this because obviously, it's better if the student athlete develops as a person during college, as opposed to just an athlete. It would appear that those with high potential coming into college (all athletes, not just Stanford ones), but then taper off as the years go on hopefully seem to "find" themselves as a person, as opposed to just being an athlete. I mean you see that with the women's tennis team as well. Student athletes just have so many more distractions, especially at a place like Stanford, where they can't just think about their sport 24/7.

As fans, it can be frustrating to see athletes not improve... but if you take a step back and if it's for the betterment of them as people, then sure, I'm all for it. That's why I think sports fans suck in general. All they see (or care to see) is the actual athlete and not the person. At the end of the day, if the athlete doesn't care about a loss, then why should we? Isn't it good enough that they just tried their best? It was entertainment for two plus hours... and that's how long it should affect us as fans.

Anyway, I'm getting off a tangent here, haha. I'm curious if your assessment of Goldstein's recruits are similar to that of Gould's. We have been having a lot of success recruiting wise (according to the rankings), but just hasn't translated to NCAA titles just quite yet (which I know there a lot of factors as well, the international recruits being one of them).

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - StanfordMatt - 09-13-2023

(09-13-2023, 11:57 AM)Sakibomb25 Wrote:  Anyway, I'm getting off a tangent here, haha. I'm curious if your assessment of Goldstein's recruits are similar to that of Gould's. We have been having a lot of success recruiting wise (according to the rankings), but just hasn't translated to NCAA titles just quite yet (which I know there a lot of factors as well, the international recruits being one of them).

I think it's hard to compare recruiting because so much has changed since Gould's heyday. My understanding is that Gould never left Palo Alto to recruit. He would follow the junior rankings, send letters out to the top players, and the Stanford Tennis brand would more or less take care of the rest. That's not to take anything away from Gould. He's a deserving hall of famer. But that approach to recruting simply wouldn't fly today and it started to let him down in the early 2000s.

The program went through a major lull under Gould's longtime assistant, John Whitlinger, who was a fantastic person but wasn't cut out to be head coach. It's crazy to think that it's already been nine years since Goldstein was hired. No, Goldstein isn't going to win 17 national titles like Gould but I think the program is in good hands under his stewardship as it's at least returned to national relevance even if it's not contending for national titles just yet. Keep in mind, he wasn't a coach before taking the Stanford job; he was working in sales for an energy company so the learning curve was steep. I don't follow super closely anymore, but the recruiting has been terrific on paper as you mention (#2 class in '23, #1 class in '22, #1 class in 2020). Similar to so many other college sports nowadays, though, what those rankings don't capture is the overwhelming role of international recruiting and transfers. Recent Stanford men's teams have featured far more international players than Gould's teams ever did so the program has adapted under Goldstein. Hopefully the title contending teams are coming soon.

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-19-2023

We're two days away from actual Stanford tennis matches at the Battle in the Bay--hosted by USF at the California Tennis Club in San Francisco, so it would be an appropriate time to post draws and participating teams, but that information doesn't appear to have been publicized yet. 

Most of the best teams in the country will likely be at a competing invitational tournament, the Fall Ranked Showcase in Cary, N.C. (hosted by NC State), so we'll be at a significantly weaker tournament, but in terms of last year's final rankings, we'll still see #2 Georgia and #9 Pepperdine (we finished #5), so there will still be some good competition for an opening invitation. And hopefully we'll get some of the individually ranked players from weaker overall teams so that our top players get a few good matches. But as we usually do in fall, we're staying relatively close to home for the invitationals and limiting fall travel. I expect that we'll still do the annual Hawaii trip to play invitational matches against Hawaii in November as a wrap-up to the fall season, but that has historically not been on the schedule anyway, so we'll see!

Last year's tournament had Pepperdine, Georgia, Arizona, ASU, USC, USD, Kansas, Fresno State, and Colorado. This year will see USC head to that North Carolina tournament, but as long as we've got the top players from Pepperdine and Georgia there, there could be some great early matches. That would mean the following players, with preseason rankings:

#6 Dasha Vidmanova (UGA)
#11 Janice Tjen (Pepp)
#14 Blake
#21 Yepifanova
#23 Savannah Broadus (Pepp)
#26 Ma
#35 Mell Reasco (UGA)
#54 Blokhina
#61 Anastasiia Lopata (UGA)
#83 Nikki Redelijk (Pepp)
#118 Xu

Plus, we'd see the #1 (Alexandra Vecic, UGA), #2 (Hui), #4 (Yu), and #6 (Aysegul Mert, UGA) newcomers, so plenty of talent in that draw even without knowing the remaining teams. 

So, watch this space!

RE: Women's Tennis: Rankings and Preseason Hardware! - ColoradoTree - 09-20-2023

Looks like we're missing a bunch of big names at this tournament. The draws are out, and the only Stanford players participating in singles are Connie Ma and India Houghton, with Ma getting the #2 seed. 

So, limited involvement, but it's at least a little Stanford tennis. Houghton plays #93 Ayumi Miyamoto of Oklahoma State at 1pm, and Ma plays Pepperdine's Anna Campana, who mostly played #6 for the Waves last year. If chalk holds, Ma would be in line to play #6 newcomer Aysegul Mert of UGA in the quarters, #40 Ange Oby Kajuru of Oklahoma State in the semis, and the winner of #6 Dasha Vidmanova (UGA) and #23 Savannah Broadus (Pepperdine) in the final. Frankly, given the field, anything less than an appearance in the finals would be a disappointment for Ma. We'll see how it goes!

That said, Angelica Blake is also showing up, but just for doubles, where she'll partner with Ma as the 3rd-seeded pair. They start things off tomorrow morning at 10am against a pair from TCU. 

You can watch a live stream here, apparently: https://www.battleinthebaytennis.com/