[ColoradoTree]

It's worth noting that Alexis Blokhina just took down World #48, Madison Brengle, at the W80K Challenger in Tyler Texas. She also beat a former foe of Stanford as she beat Ashley Lahey, formerly of Pepperdine, in the final round of qualifying. That's some good signs for our new freshman!

Fantastic stuff! And both were in very tough matches (3-6, 6-4, 6-4 over 2nd-seeded Brengle and 6-4, 3-6 with a 10-7 match tiebreaker over Lahey), so it demonstrates some terrific grit and fight. She plays Colombia's Emiliana Arango (career high of #220 on the WTA Tour, currently #253) in about 45 minutes or so, and if she can win that one and the other match goes to expectations, she'd get 2020 Australian Open champ Sofia Kenin in the next round. 

Fall tennis for college players is all about challenging yourself and playing tough matches to get better. Losing doesn't hurt your team any, so take some risks and play tough matches. Absolutely love to see this from Blokhina, as it's a very different approach than what we usually see. It involves doing a week of school remotely, sure, but it strikes me as a reasonable accommodation for someone intent on playing professional tennis someday.

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And she's past Arango, who retired after Blokhina won a second set tiebreaker. Our star freshman gets a Grand Slam winner next, at noon tomorrow.

[ColoradoTree]

It's worth noting that Alexis Blokhina just took down World #48, Madison Brengle, at the W80K Challenger in Tyler Texas. She also beat a former foe of Stanford as she beat Ashley Lahey, formerly of Pepperdine, in the final round of qualifying. That's some good signs for our new freshman!

Fantastic stuff! And both were in very tough matches (3-6, 6-4, 6-4 over 2nd-seeded Brengle and 6-4, 3-6 with a 10-7 match tiebreaker over Lahey), so it demonstrates some terrific grit and fight. She plays Colombia's Emiliana Arango (career high of #220 on the WTA Tour, currently #253) in about 45 minutes or so, and if she can win that one and the other match goes to expectations, she'd get 2020 Australian Open champ Sofia Kenin in the next round. 

Fall tennis for college players is all about challenging yourself and playing tough matches to get better. Losing doesn't hurt your team any, so take some risks and play tough matches. Absolutely love to see this from Blokhina, as it's a very different approach than what we usually see. It involves doing a week of school remotely, sure, but it strikes me as a reasonable accommodation for someone intent on playing professional tennis someday.

---

And she's past Arango, who retired after Blokhina won a second set tiebreaker. Our star freshman gets a Grand Slam winner next, at noon tomorrow.