W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - Printable Version
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W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - oldalum - 07-08-2020
#1 2021 recruit Connie Ma has verbally committed to Stanford (according to news reports), joining #2 2021 recruit Yepifanova. The juggernaut rolls on!
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - magnus - 07-08-2020
Wow. Awesome!
Thanks for the good news.
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BobK - 07-08-2020
Thanks. Sure need good news today after the cut of 11 sports
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BostonCard - 07-08-2020
Nice! What is the risk that one or both of them will go pro straight away? As I recall, we recently had a top recruit forgo Stanford to go pro.
BC
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - terry - 07-08-2020
Great news!
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - akiddoc - 07-08-2020
(07-08-2020, 11:30 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Nice! What is the risk that one or both of them will go pro straight away? As I recall, we recently had a top recruit forgo Stanford to go pro.
BC
Going pro right now may be useless. No tournaments to play.
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - Sakibomb25 - 07-09-2020
This is awesome news... we should be in good position in a year or two to be back in the convo for a national title. I think this year we are missing one or two players to make us a contender... but hopefully i’m wrong!
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BobK - 07-15-2020
On the UCLA board they post we have a third commit Xu
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BostonCard - 07-15-2020
This site has her ranked #4
https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/player.asp?id=829843
That would be an epic 2021 haul.
BC
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BobK - 07-15-2020
third commit for two scholarships. Waiting for our mentor for here :)
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - slide - 07-15-2020
(07-15-2020, 10:09 AM)BobK Wrote: third commit for two scholarships. Waiting for our mr for here :)
Shaw donating an unutilized scholarship?
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - Cardinal77 - 08-27-2020
Xu now officially committed to Stanford according to Tennis Recruiting. If no one turns pro then #1,2,4 recruits for 2021. The rich get richer!
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BobK - 08-27-2020
Outstanding
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - ColoradoTree - 09-01-2020
Just ridiculous. All the way around, just ridiculous. Here's the scoop on each of the Class of 2021 recruits:
Alexandra Yepifanova. Currently #2, has been #1 in the past. Russian-born, naturalized citizen, lived in Massachusetts for a while, high school at IMG in Florida, career high ITF junior ranking of #14 (by contrast, Michaela Gordon's was #21). She's tall. She hits hard.
Connie Ma. Generally the #1 player in the class, but she's not currently ranked because she prioritizes school over tennis and thus hasn't been playing enough tournaments to qualify for the rankings. She's been #1 in the country throughout high school, though. She's 5'4" (or was a couple years ago), and won the girls' under-18 winter national championship back in January 2019, when she was just 15. (She won the national doubles crown at the same tournament.) She's led the USA to Junior Fed Cup titles. She's basically the ideal Stanford women's tennis recruit--smooth, great decisionmaking, prioritizes academics, is good enough to potentially try a pro career but gets the value of college. Awesome.
Valencia Xu. From New Jersey, she has consistently been ranked in the top 5 throughout high school. She reached the finals of the girls' 16s national championships in 2019, and then won the USTA Women's National Open last December (the year before, that same title was won by UNC's Alexa Graham, for context). The year before that, she won the USTA 18s national indoors title as a 15-year old.
On the risk of going pro, it's always there. But I wonder if covid has highlighted for some of these players that professional success is fragile and fleeting, and the ol' 40-year plan has some merit to it. And yes, especially since pro tennis right now is barely functioning (and even then, not functioning at all for lower-ranked players trying to qualify, since the qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open was canceled), why not spend a year or two getting a free, elite education while working on tennis at the same time?
The roster math is a little wonky (only two spots opening up after this season with Arbuthnott and Higuchi moving on), but what this might signal is that either Gordon or Shin (or both) doesn't intend to take that fifth year. Gordon wanting to try her hand at a pro career after getting her degree would make sense, though.
Fifth years (2): Arbuthnott, Higuchi
Seniors (2): Gordon, Shin
Juniors (2): Madurawe, Choy
Sophomores (2): Blake, Mossmer
Freshmen (2): Houghton, Geller
Next class (3): Ma, Xu, Yepifanova
Those early lineups in the spring of 2022 will be fascinating, with Lele having to choose six from a group that could include Gordon, Shin, Madurawe, Choy, Blake, Mossmer, Houghton, Geller, Ma, Xu, or Yepifanova. Goodness gracious!
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - ColoradoTree - 09-02-2020
Unlike a lot of other top high school players, Connie Ma doesn't do online or remote learning. She's a regular high school student at Dublin High School, albeit one who plays high-level tennis tournaments. I don't mean that as a knock on the high school experiences of some of our other recruits and current players, but she's something of a throwback that way.
It also underscores just how good she is. She plays a small fraction of the tournaments that some other players do and is ranked as highly as she has been because crushes those she does play.
Looking at her year-over-year ranking in TRN is hilarious. For example, here's Xu's outstanding history of recruiting rankings:
HIGHEST RANKINGS
2020 Recruiting: 3 (2/11)
TennisRPI: 2 (8/6)
2019 Recruiting: 3 (12/17)
TennisRPI: 2 (10/10)
2018 Recruiting: 4 (7/3)
TennisRPI: 1 (11/1)
2017 Recruiting: 15 (10/10)
TennisRPI: 3 (12/28)
So, Xu has peaked in the top the last three years and has generally hung around there. Here's Yepinafova's:
HIGHEST RANKINGS
2020 Recruiting: 1 (8/18)
TennisRPI: 11 (6/18)
2019 Recruiting: 2 (12/17)
TennisRPI: 18 (12/19)
2018 Recruiting: 3 (12/25)
TennisRPI: 8 (2/1)
2017 Recruiting: 3 (12/26)
TennisRPI: 8 (12/28)
Also amazing! But here's Ma's:
HIGHEST RANKINGS
2020 Recruiting: 1 (6/30)
TennisRPI: 1 (7/2)
2019 Recruiting: 1 (12/24)
TennisRPI: 1 (12/26)
2018 Recruiting: 1 (12/25)
TennisRPI: 1 (12/27)
2017 Recruiting: 1 (12/26)
TennisRPI: 1 (12/28)
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BobK - 09-02-2020
Awesome recruiting still better posting. Thank you
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - ColoradoTree - 09-02-2020
For a bit of context, there are 24 blue chip players this year, and 17 have already committed, which feels really early, and I have to believe covid plays a role there, as players likely want to lock up spots at healthy, successful programs rather than take a risk on mid-majors or a major conference team towards the bottom of that conference that might not be there in a couple years. So, I would guess the 2021 recruiting cycle sees the rich get richer.
Anyway, Stanford now has 3 of the top 5. Other teams landing blue chips:
2 blue chips: UCLA (peaked at #5 and #13 in TRN rankings, currently #7 and #13), Duke (#3 and #4 at peak, #4 and NR now), and Texas (#3 and #10 at peak, #11 and NR now)
1 blue chip: UNC, South Carolina, Harvard, UVA, Pepperdine, LSU, Georgia, and Ohio State
Oh, and as of yesterday's rankings, Yepifanova is back up to #1 and Xu is back up to #3. So, our three have peaked at #1, #1, and #3.
We've got some time, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Ma debut at the top of our lineup in Spring 2022. Would be the first time a freshman played #1 in a fully healthy lineup in quite some time (I don't believe Gordon would have started at #1 had Lord been healthy to start the season).
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - ColoradoTree - 09-03-2020
Going back several years, a freshman started the season at #1 singles in 2018 (Michaela Gordon), but that was due to Lord's injury, and while Lele hasn't talked about it, I'm confident that Lord would have started that year at #1 if she'd been healthy. Before that, you have to go back to the 2008 season to find a freshman (Hilary Barte) who finished the year at #1, but she actually started the year at #3 before playing her way up the lineup and spending most of the year in the top spot. Laura Granville started the year at #1 as a freshman in the 2000 season but mostly played #2 that year behind sophomore Marissa Irvin, who missed the first couple of matches. You have to go back to the 1999 season when we had a freshman (Irvin) start the year at #1 and be the unquestioned #1 all year.
That said, Gordon held #1 when Lord came back, so perhaps an asterisk there is unfair.
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - ColoradoTree - 12-18-2020
Resurrecting this thread now that Early Signing Day has come and gone. Connie Ma and Alexandra Yepifanova have signed their letters of intent and will be coming to Stanford next fall: https://gostanford.com/news/2020/12/18/womens-tennis-more-depth-on-the-way.aspx
Of note, Valencia Xu has not signed yet, and she goes unmentioned in the official article (which is as it should be, if she's unsigned). Tennis Recruiting Network still shows her as a verbal commit to Stanford, but like I've expressed earlier in the thread, the roster math has always been tough to add three in this class:
5th years: Emily Arbuthnott, Emma Higuchi
Seniors: Michaela Gordon, Janice Shin
Juniors: Sara Choy, Niluka Madurawe
Sophomores: Angelica Blake, Nicole Mossmer
Freshmen: India Houghton, Ana Geller
Next year: Connie Ma, Alexandra Yepifanova
You normally get 8 scholarships, but those on the roster last year (and I think those joining this year?) get an extra year of eligibility, so we're at 10. Ma and Yepifanova make 10 for next year. For Xu to join the class, someone with a year of eligibility needs to leave early or transfer, I would think.
RE: W Tennis Recruiting: a 1 - 2 punch! - BobK - 12-18-2020
https://www.nj.com/highschoolsports/2020/11/early-signing-day-class-of-2021-boysgirls-tennis-commitments.html-2?outputType=amp
This is interesting. Plus fans of mystery writer Harlan Coben will recognize the town of Livingston NJ