11-09-2021, 11:44 AM
There's a recap article up for the weekend's action, and though I know there was tennis played on Sunday (and Madurawe was back and playing doubles with Ana Geller), there are no Sunday results listed. But of the matches that were played over the weekend at Taube, the following are of interest:
* Maria Martinez Vaquero (USF) def. Ana Geller, 6-4, 6-3
* Valencia Xu def. #99 Elizaveta Volodko (UCSB) 6-3, 7-6
* #51 Shakhnoza Khatamova (UCSB) def. Sara Choy 6-2, 1-6, 10-7
* India Houghton def. Stephanie Schrage (Princeton) 3-6, 6-4, 6-4
I'll start with the two matches against the UCSB ranked players, because those make me happy. I would've liked to see Houghton or Geller get a match against one of those two, but that's a great win for Xu, and I think it's her first ranked win, so congrats Valencia! And for Choy to respond to a 6-2 first set loss to a top 50-caliber player by storming back in the second and taking it 6-1 and force a match tiebreaker? That's above expectations, so I'll happily take that. (For the record, Volodko played #1 for UCSB last year and Khatamova played #3; Gordon beat Volodko both times in straight sets; the first time, Blake beat Khatamova 6-3, 6-4, and the second time, Khatamova was leading Arbuthnott when the match was abandoned.) And Princeton's Stephanie Schrage is a good player--she's a senior, she was a top 10 recruit out of high school, she's usually ranked in singles, and she's had a successful career. Glad Houghton pulled that one out.
Not sure what happened in that Geller match, but that's not a match she should lose. in my opinion. Martinez Vaquero was the 15 seed at Northwest Regionals while Geller was unseeded, and she played some matches at #1 for USF last year, but I would still expect Geller to win that match. FWIW, at Northwest Regionals, Yepifanova beat Martinez Vaquero 6-2, 6-1. And in a different match, Geller needed three sets to beat a UCSB freshman who came in as a 5-star, but not a blue chip (peaked as the #30 recruit). Geller exited early at Northwest Regionals, but it was a three-set loss to Kozyreva, which I thought was a decent result. Hopefully we see Geller tighten up whatever's not working--I was hoping to see a jump in her development this year, but the fall isn't showing that.
And there were also no matches by Gordon or Mossmer mentioned, and a picture I saw of all the Sunday participants with Bob Bryan showed just Choy, Xu, Houghton, Geller, and Madurawe, but no Gordon or Mossmer, so presumably they didn't take part. But the official team Instagram account showed some media day pictures on their stories, and while Gordon wasn't in those, Mossmer was, at least. But I'm still not seeing much evidence that she's playing any tennis or even practicing. The Hawaii trip is in a couple weeks, though, so we'll see who travels for that.
* Maria Martinez Vaquero (USF) def. Ana Geller, 6-4, 6-3
* Valencia Xu def. #99 Elizaveta Volodko (UCSB) 6-3, 7-6
* #51 Shakhnoza Khatamova (UCSB) def. Sara Choy 6-2, 1-6, 10-7
* India Houghton def. Stephanie Schrage (Princeton) 3-6, 6-4, 6-4
I'll start with the two matches against the UCSB ranked players, because those make me happy. I would've liked to see Houghton or Geller get a match against one of those two, but that's a great win for Xu, and I think it's her first ranked win, so congrats Valencia! And for Choy to respond to a 6-2 first set loss to a top 50-caliber player by storming back in the second and taking it 6-1 and force a match tiebreaker? That's above expectations, so I'll happily take that. (For the record, Volodko played #1 for UCSB last year and Khatamova played #3; Gordon beat Volodko both times in straight sets; the first time, Blake beat Khatamova 6-3, 6-4, and the second time, Khatamova was leading Arbuthnott when the match was abandoned.) And Princeton's Stephanie Schrage is a good player--she's a senior, she was a top 10 recruit out of high school, she's usually ranked in singles, and she's had a successful career. Glad Houghton pulled that one out.
Not sure what happened in that Geller match, but that's not a match she should lose. in my opinion. Martinez Vaquero was the 15 seed at Northwest Regionals while Geller was unseeded, and she played some matches at #1 for USF last year, but I would still expect Geller to win that match. FWIW, at Northwest Regionals, Yepifanova beat Martinez Vaquero 6-2, 6-1. And in a different match, Geller needed three sets to beat a UCSB freshman who came in as a 5-star, but not a blue chip (peaked as the #30 recruit). Geller exited early at Northwest Regionals, but it was a three-set loss to Kozyreva, which I thought was a decent result. Hopefully we see Geller tighten up whatever's not working--I was hoping to see a jump in her development this year, but the fall isn't showing that.
And there were also no matches by Gordon or Mossmer mentioned, and a picture I saw of all the Sunday participants with Bob Bryan showed just Choy, Xu, Houghton, Geller, and Madurawe, but no Gordon or Mossmer, so presumably they didn't take part. But the official team Instagram account showed some media day pictures on their stories, and while Gordon wasn't in those, Mossmer was, at least. But I'm still not seeing much evidence that she's playing any tennis or even practicing. The Hawaii trip is in a couple weeks, though, so we'll see who travels for that.