09-30-2023, 07:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-30-2023, 07:54 AM by ColoradoTree.)
In singles, Yu is the 3 seed behind two Cal Bears, Katja Wiersholm and Hanna Viller Moeller. Another Bear, freshman Mao Mushika is the 4 seed. This is the Cal Invitational, after all, so it stands to reason that a few Bears would be highly placed among the seeds, and we still haven't seen Yu play a college match, so one never knows, but Yu is better than all of them. India Houghton is the 7 seed, which is a little surprising, but I just think that shows that this is a pretty weak field.
Yu beat her first round opponent with a double bagel, and her second round match is up at 10:30am. Assuming she wins that, she'd have a quarterfinal against 8th-seeded Kira Reuter of UCSB at 2:00pm. Houghton won her first round match, 2 and 4, and she'll play Michaela Gordon's little sister Jenna at 10:30 as well.
Meanwhile, Emma Sun is in the lower tier singles draw, and she won her first two matches to set up a R16 match with Cal's Makenna Thiel, a junior who sometimes plays #6 for them. These are the kind of matches you'd like to see Sun win, if only to give you a little hope that she could develop into a contributor.
Xu/Yu won their first doubles match, and their next one was scheduled for yesterday morning, but I'm not seeing a result posted.
Pre-qualifying is getting going over at ITA All-Americans today in North Carolina, but I don't see any of our players in the draw. Perhaps Xu will go straight from Berkeley to Cary in order to compete in the qualifying draw? Qualifying starts Monday, so perhaps her ranking was high enough to get her directly into that draw. That she's not playing singles in Berkeley would be consistent with wanting to stay relatively fresh for that tournament (of course, it would also be consistent with a minor injury)
But the pre-qualifying is where Yu and Hui would've automatically been entered as ranked newcomers, so their absence means that either they got wild cards into qualifying (more likely for Hui than Yu, given the US Open junior title), or they're not coming. That Yu is in Berkeley makes me think that she, at least, is probably not coming. Seems like a missed opportunity if so.
Yu beat her first round opponent with a double bagel, and her second round match is up at 10:30am. Assuming she wins that, she'd have a quarterfinal against 8th-seeded Kira Reuter of UCSB at 2:00pm. Houghton won her first round match, 2 and 4, and she'll play Michaela Gordon's little sister Jenna at 10:30 as well.
Meanwhile, Emma Sun is in the lower tier singles draw, and she won her first two matches to set up a R16 match with Cal's Makenna Thiel, a junior who sometimes plays #6 for them. These are the kind of matches you'd like to see Sun win, if only to give you a little hope that she could develop into a contributor.
Xu/Yu won their first doubles match, and their next one was scheduled for yesterday morning, but I'm not seeing a result posted.
Pre-qualifying is getting going over at ITA All-Americans today in North Carolina, but I don't see any of our players in the draw. Perhaps Xu will go straight from Berkeley to Cary in order to compete in the qualifying draw? Qualifying starts Monday, so perhaps her ranking was high enough to get her directly into that draw. That she's not playing singles in Berkeley would be consistent with wanting to stay relatively fresh for that tournament (of course, it would also be consistent with a minor injury)
But the pre-qualifying is where Yu and Hui would've automatically been entered as ranked newcomers, so their absence means that either they got wild cards into qualifying (more likely for Hui than Yu, given the US Open junior title), or they're not coming. That Yu is in Berkeley makes me think that she, at least, is probably not coming. Seems like a missed opportunity if so.