Women's Tennis: ITA Rankings

[ColoradoTree]

We don't know whether there will be a Stanford women's tennis season this year--ITA Kick-Off Weekend will proceed without us, and there's no schedule--but we do have the first ITA rankings of the year! Singles and doubles are below (we didn't have any newcomers in the Top 10), and the team rankings come out tomorrow.

Singles

#10 Michaela Gordon
#58 Angelica Blake
#63 Emily Arbuthnott
#114 Janice Shin

Doubles

#9 Arbuthnott/Blake
#32 Choy/Higuchi

[BobK]

Thanks for keeping us informed. One would think this sport could be played at Stanford
But we await

[ColoradoTree]

Thanks for keeping us informed.  One would think this sport could be played at Stanford
But we await

Agreed, though I am certainly sensitive to the arguments that it's less about the sport itself (since it's about as safe a sport to play in a respiratory pandemic as can be imagined, with certain safeguards in place) and more about the travel and further exposures that take place in the leadup to holding the match itself, particularly where matches may take place between schools located in areas with very different approaches in response to the pandemic. 

But it's doable.

[ColoradoTree]

Team rankings came out today and Stanford is #4, around where I would've expected. 

UNC is #1, as they should be, and UCLA is rightfully #2. Then it's Texas, us, Pepperdine, Duke, Georgia, N.C. State, Florida State, and UVA. No quarrel with that--we're not quite at UNC/UCLA's level, but we're still a Top 5 team.

Elsewhere in the conference, USC is #17, Cal is #19, and ASU is #20.  

Oh, and the men's team is ranked #5, so if there's a season, Taube could be an exciting place to be on campus this spring/summer.

[oldalum]

the ITA also ranks 10 "newcomers" which I assume means frosh. No respect for our 2 frosh, Geller and Houghton.
(but the men got #1 and #4 newcomers)

[ColoradoTree]

New ITA rankings out today, and Stanford drops to #6, behind Pepperdine and Georgia. That seems plenty fair, considering that Pepperdine and Georgia have now played (and beaten) good teams and Stanford has played, well, nobody yet. No schedule yet on the website, though other Pac-12 teams (who are playing or are starting to play soon, at least) have the following dates for Stanford on their schedules:

2/19: vs. St. Mary's

3/5 at Utah
3/7: at Colorado

3/19: vs. ASU
3/20: vs. Arizona

3/26: vs. Wazzu
3/27: vs. Washington

4/2: vs. Pepperdine
4/4: vs. Oregon

4/9: at UCLA
4/10: at USC

(Not on Cal's schedule, but there's an open weekend between the L.A. matches and the start of the Pac-12 tournament, so that's probably where we'd play them--if we play at all.)

Expect any open spots on the schedule to be filled by the likes of Irvine, Davis, USF, San Jose State, etc. rather than the non-conference opponents we're used to seeing. Pepperdine will have to stand as our only impressive non-conference match, but in a season like this, what can you do? It looks like the ITA and NCAA are trying to retool rankings and seeding for the NCAA tournament on the fly to be fair to teams that have been harder hit by COVID and its attendant restrictions, and schools in the Big Ten (who have conference-only schedules aside from Kick-Off Weekend and Indoor Nationals). So, with a shortened season, perhaps we won't be unduly affected come NCAAs. 

Luckily, the Pac-12 is well-represented in the Top 25 right now: #3 UCLA, #6 Stanford, #16 USC, #19 Cal, and #23 ASU. If we do reasonably well in conference, the streak of home postseason matches could remain intact.

---

On one hand, the team should be relatively fresh come NCAAs. On the other, this team in particular gets better and stronger as the season goes on, as we've seen time and time again (and really, lots of teams will be fresh coming into NCAAs).

[ColoradoTree]

New ITA rankings are out, and as was the case last week, Stanford is unranked in the coaches' poll (a commentary not on the quality of the team, but of its lack of matches). 

But at least we have a schedule! It's limited, as expected, but it's something! It confirms most of the dates above (all except ASU, St. Mary's (which obviously didn't happen), and Pepperdine), and has us starting the season this Friday against Santa Clara!

https://gostanford.com/sports/womens-tennis/schedule

As short a season as there is, and under standard rules, we'd probably be out of luck in terms of hosting a postseason round or two, but who knows what the plan will be this year?? How do you even properly seed a Stanford team you thought at the beginning of the year was #4, but who will have played just a handful of ranked teams by the end of the season? We'll be as wild a wild card as there is, but that'll just make it all the more exciting. We'll be fresher than most of the other top teams, but we won't have near the seasoning that other teams will (and that this team usually gains over the course of a year).

[oldalum]

Especially with the need to work the 2 frosh into the lineup, our short season hurts us relative to our top competitors who have been practicing and playing 7-10 matches already. At least the schedule will allow us to ramp up slowly in competition before we run the Cal/UCLA gantlet (did you notice Cal beat UCLA already?)

(how about Nicole Gibbs for volunteer assistant coach?)