05-27-2025, 02:27 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-27-2025, 02:32 PM by ColoradoTree.)
You know, I don't think it's too much to ask highly-touted freshmen to come in and play as well as we think they could. When this team is cranking, it's because top freshmen have come in and dominated on the lower courts. I think of Caroline Lampl and Melissa Lord winning a national title as freshmen in 2016 after holding down the 5 and 6 lines all year. Michaela Gordon and Janice Shin were key players as freshmen in the 2018 title win. We didn't need our freshmen quite as much in 2019 (Choy and Madurawe), but still, both contributed, including Choy winning at #6 in the NCAA semifinals.
So, as long as we've got some veteran leadership, having a few freshmen playing in the singles lineup isn't too heavy of a lift. But looking at next year's roster, we're a little lighter on experience than we usually are. Losing the three seniors (Ma, Yepifanova, and Xu) is tough, since the ideal is to have two in each class to match up with the 8-scholarship limit, and then you throw Blokhina's early pro departure and Yu's unprecedented-in-my-memory-at-least outgoing transfer, and we're very young. So, I don't love that. But Glozman crushed it this year as a freshman, so no reason our incoming trio can't come in and do what past rookies have done.
On the topic of early departures, I just saw the news that India Houghton is putting her pro career on pause to go and play for Florida as a grad transfer. Her pro career this spring didn't go terribly well, as her record in main draw matches was 2-6, all at the lowest W15 level. (That said, her record in doubles--which has to be her only chance at a meaningful pro career--was 8-5, though all still at that W15 level.) Unclear that her spring was better spent than it could've been playing at 5 or 6 in our lineup, and Houghton at 6 is much, much better than Okpara at 6.
Blokhina has had better singles results (13-8), and across W15, W35, and W50 tournaments, but again, it's unclear whether her spring served her better than playing #3 in our lineup would have. She didn't win any titles, but we could have been in the mix for one if she'd stayed.
Compare their springs to that of incoming freshman Monika Ekstrand, who won two W35 titles this spring, including the one in Jackson I mentioned a few posts ago, and in that one, Blokhina lost in the second round to a player that Ekstrand then beat on her road to the title. Anyway, Ekstrand looks to have pole position among the incoming freshmen.
Another way of looking at it is that we're entering a three-year window with a core of four top players (Glozman plus the three incoming freshmen) where they can grow together into something special.
But you never really know until freshmen get to campus what you have. Sometimes it's not the higher-ranked recruit that ends up playing higher in the lineup, you know? And sometimes a recruit who was tagged as a blue chip coming in never even comes close to living up to that billing.
So, as long as we've got some veteran leadership, having a few freshmen playing in the singles lineup isn't too heavy of a lift. But looking at next year's roster, we're a little lighter on experience than we usually are. Losing the three seniors (Ma, Yepifanova, and Xu) is tough, since the ideal is to have two in each class to match up with the 8-scholarship limit, and then you throw Blokhina's early pro departure and Yu's unprecedented-in-my-memory-at-least outgoing transfer, and we're very young. So, I don't love that. But Glozman crushed it this year as a freshman, so no reason our incoming trio can't come in and do what past rookies have done.
On the topic of early departures, I just saw the news that India Houghton is putting her pro career on pause to go and play for Florida as a grad transfer. Her pro career this spring didn't go terribly well, as her record in main draw matches was 2-6, all at the lowest W15 level. (That said, her record in doubles--which has to be her only chance at a meaningful pro career--was 8-5, though all still at that W15 level.) Unclear that her spring was better spent than it could've been playing at 5 or 6 in our lineup, and Houghton at 6 is much, much better than Okpara at 6.
Blokhina has had better singles results (13-8), and across W15, W35, and W50 tournaments, but again, it's unclear whether her spring served her better than playing #3 in our lineup would have. She didn't win any titles, but we could have been in the mix for one if she'd stayed.
Compare their springs to that of incoming freshman Monika Ekstrand, who won two W35 titles this spring, including the one in Jackson I mentioned a few posts ago, and in that one, Blokhina lost in the second round to a player that Ekstrand then beat on her road to the title. Anyway, Ekstrand looks to have pole position among the incoming freshmen.
Another way of looking at it is that we're entering a three-year window with a core of four top players (Glozman plus the three incoming freshmen) where they can grow together into something special.
But you never really know until freshmen get to campus what you have. Sometimes it's not the higher-ranked recruit that ends up playing higher in the lineup, you know? And sometimes a recruit who was tagged as a blue chip coming in never even comes close to living up to that billing.