In terms of our national competition, let's look at the final top 10 teams, at least in the pre-NCAA rankings:
1. UNC: UNC loses Jessie Aney and Chloe Ouellet-Pizer, but Aney played #5 and Ouellet-Pizer was generally on the outside looking in when it came to singles this year.
2. Georgia: the biggest concern is that Georgia returns everybody, so they have to be your preseason #1.
3. Stanford: see above
4. South Carolina loses three players, including their top two singles players, but they're bringing in a large recruiting class, with three players who look like they can step in and contribute right away. But I would expect South Carolina to take a bit of a dip next year.
5. Duke loses #4 Ellyse Hamlin and #5 Kaitlyn McCarthy, both of whom played either #1 or #2 doubles, so Duke has a couple of key holes to fill, even though the top of their lineup will be unchanged, but they've got a Top 5 recruit coming in, so I expect they'll be fine.
6. Pepperdine only loses #4 Dzina Milovanovic for sure, but it's never certain in tennis that players who have redshirted come back, so you may not see Jessica Failla (who'll be a redshirt senior) return, either. True to form, Pepperdine has a Norwegian and a Swede coming in, but I don't know much about them.
7. UCLA: see below
8. Vanderbilt loses the great Fernanda Contreras as well as Emily Smith and Summer Dvorak, both of whom regularly played at #5 and #6. They won't disappear, however, as they bring in a blue chip and a couple of five stars (one of whom looks like she easily could have been a blue chip, too, at least based on UTR).
9. Texas only loses Katie Poluta, who played #5 and #6 for the Longhorns this year. But that will be a very experienced team next year.
10. Washington: see below
Pac-12 competition:
* UCLA: the Bruins lose three contributors from their lineup, #3 Ayan Broomfield, #4 Alaina Miller, and sometimes-#6 Gabby Andrews. Jada Hart is a redshirt junior, too, so there's no guarantee she comes back for a 5th year. UCLA has the #2 recruiting class in the country right now, though, with two Top 10 recruits coming in, so they can reload quickly enough. If Hart doesn't come back, though, that'll mean a very young team that could struggle to find its way.
* Washington: the Huskies lose #1 Stacey Fung and #4 Kenadi Hance and right now only have one recruit coming in, another Canadian player. But without Fung, I'd expect Washington to take a step back.
* USC loses #3 Rianna Valdes but is bringing a blue chip and a couple other recruits to fill the gap. They should be right there again next year.
* Cal loses #2 Olivia Hauger and #5 Maria Smith, and the only recruit I'm aware of is a New Zealand player who looks promising.
* Washington State loses two major contributors, #2/#3 Tiffany Mylonas and #5/#6 Aneta Miksovska, and recruiting looks light so far, but I'd expect another international recruit or two before the fall.
* Arizona State returns everyone, so I'd expect a strong season from them.
Overall:
I think Georgia and UNC are your consensus top two teams next year, given how strong their returning players are. And Duke, Pepperdine, and Texas will all have very good, experienced rosters, too. But we'll be right there, and I don't see anyone in the Pac-12 that I would
expect to unseat us, though USC should be improved and UCLA will have plenty of talent, albeit a lot of young talent. I'm excited to see how our players do in fall tournaments, and we will learn a lot about our roster at Indoor Nationals next year, that's for sure. In the Pac-12, I'd expect Stanford, UCLA, and USC to be the clear top three but with more separation after that, though ASU should be better, WSU will be dangerous, and UW and Cal will likely take a step back. It's not like this season, where as defending champions returning the entire lineup, we were the clear preseason #1. Yes, we have more blue chips to plug the holes left behind those we lose, but you don't easily replace Melissa Lord or Caroline Lampl.
For our prospects, I want to know the answer to several questions:
1. How much does Gordon improve? She was more reliable at #1 this year than last year, but does she take the next step to the point where we feel good about winning at #1 in most matches?
2. How does Arbuthnott handle consistently stronger competition at #2? We know from fall tournaments that she has that gear in her to beat top players, but we also see her grind out tough, long matches against middling opponents. How does her style of play fit against a consistently higher class of competition?
3. How high does Higuchi climb in the lineup, and how soon does Lele realize that Higuchi might just be better off playing at #6 again?
4. How much of a leap do Choy and Madurawe take in the offseason? There's no guarantee both make the singles lineup, after all. The top three are spoken for, Higuchi's still here, and Blake and Mossmer are knocking on the door, so it should be a great competition to see who ends up in the back half of the lineup.
5. Does Blake or Mossmer come in and take a spot in singles? If one does, my money is on Blake. If so, who gets left out--Madurawe, Choy, or Higuchi?
6. How strong can we get in doubles, with a need for two new teams? We were inconsistent in doubles this year, but we delivered in the two biggest matches of the year, too. Can we do enough work and find the right chemistry to build doubles to the level where the doubles point is expected, even against better competition?
It got lost in the shuffle, as we were focused on more important matters, but on Saturday, the ITA announced regional award winners, and we took home a few of them for our Northwest region:
Coach of the Year: Lele Forood
Assistant Coach of the Year: Frankie Brennan
Senior Player of the Year: Melissa Lord
Rookie of the Year went to WSU's Hikaru Sato, which seems right.
The national ITA awards were announced yesterday, and yet again, Lele did
not win Coach of the Year. No Stanford players won any awards, either. But we won the trophy, so that's all that matters.
This recap of Stanford's win over Georgia has some nice video of the post-match interviews with Lele, Shin, Lord, and Lampl.
https://www.collegetennistoday.com/item/...orgia.html
What an odd thing to clinch a national championship when three other courts are still playing. Gordon, Arbuthnott, and Higuchi were rightly locked into their own matches, so the moment of the clinch itself was more understated than we're used to. Not a dead sprint by the whole team from the next court over to tackle the victor, because there was tennis still being played on both #4 and #6!
I appreciated the wider angle, because you could see Georgia's Wolff at #4 hold off serving for nearly the entirety of that match point in case it ended quickly. I love the side angle, too, with Higuchi going back to get a ball that was hit out by her opponent, she glances over to watch Shin's point, and you can see her mouth go wide when that last lob falls out, but she doesn't raise her arms or run toward Shin for a couple seconds.
