Women's Tennis Championship Preview
Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 2:15 pm
Previewing the title match versus Stanford
The Cardinal was only the 15 seed as this tournament began, but has played tough throughout. Stanford beat St. John's 4-0, Michigan 4-0 and #7 Georgia 4-0 before knocking off #3 Duke 4-2. Does that path to the championship sound familiar?
The Stanford seeding is suspect considering its only 3 losses during the regular season were to teams ranked #9 (Florida), #6 (Texas) and #1 (Vanderbilt) in the current NCAA Tournament. Stanford also beat #12 UCLA twice (including the PAC-12 Championship game at Ojai) and had won 13 straight matches going into the NCAAT.
Stanford is in its third straight NCAA Championship match. The Tree lost to Florida in 2017, but won the whole shooting match in 2016 including a semi-final win over the 'Dores.
I wouldn't bank too heavily on Vanderbilt's 7-0 win over Stanford in February because both of our teams are playing their best right now and the score did not reflect the closeness of the match. The former Indians (RIP 1972) were missing one of their top players; three of the matches went to 3 sets; and two others included tiebreakers.
Link to Stanford article re Stanford @ Vanderbilt:
http://gostanford.com/news/2018/2/3/wom ... s-one.aspx
Stanford's top-ranked (ITA) players are not rated as highly as our top players, but they have six singles players in the ITA Top 125 (as of May 3) compared to only 3 from Vanderbilt. The doubles point could make the difference once again as both schools have excellent doubles teams.
SINGLES RANKINGS ............... DOUBLES RANKINGS ...........
VANDERBILT ....................... VANDERBILT ...............
10 Fernanda Contreras ........ 11 Contreras/Sharma ..........
11 Astra Sharma .............. 25 Rosca/Emma Kurtz* .........
44 Christina Rosca ........... 69 Emily Smith/Emma Kurtz* ...
*Kurtz can't play in two doubles matches. She teamed with Smith in the February match
STANFORD .......................... STANFORD ................
15 Michaela Gordon ........... 03 Arbuthnott/Gordon .........
40 Melissa Lord .............. 84 Kimberly Yee/Lampl ........
43 Emily Arbuthnott
93 Carolyn Lampl
96 Janice Shinn
102 Emma Higuchi
This could go down to the wire!
The Cardinal was only the 15 seed as this tournament began, but has played tough throughout. Stanford beat St. John's 4-0, Michigan 4-0 and #7 Georgia 4-0 before knocking off #3 Duke 4-2. Does that path to the championship sound familiar?
The Stanford seeding is suspect considering its only 3 losses during the regular season were to teams ranked #9 (Florida), #6 (Texas) and #1 (Vanderbilt) in the current NCAA Tournament. Stanford also beat #12 UCLA twice (including the PAC-12 Championship game at Ojai) and had won 13 straight matches going into the NCAAT.
Stanford is in its third straight NCAA Championship match. The Tree lost to Florida in 2017, but won the whole shooting match in 2016 including a semi-final win over the 'Dores.
I wouldn't bank too heavily on Vanderbilt's 7-0 win over Stanford in February because both of our teams are playing their best right now and the score did not reflect the closeness of the match. The former Indians (RIP 1972) were missing one of their top players; three of the matches went to 3 sets; and two others included tiebreakers.
Link to Stanford article re Stanford @ Vanderbilt:
http://gostanford.com/news/2018/2/3/wom ... s-one.aspx
Stanford's top-ranked (ITA) players are not rated as highly as our top players, but they have six singles players in the ITA Top 125 (as of May 3) compared to only 3 from Vanderbilt. The doubles point could make the difference once again as both schools have excellent doubles teams.
SINGLES RANKINGS ............... DOUBLES RANKINGS ...........
VANDERBILT ....................... VANDERBILT ...............
10 Fernanda Contreras ........ 11 Contreras/Sharma ..........
11 Astra Sharma .............. 25 Rosca/Emma Kurtz* .........
44 Christina Rosca ........... 69 Emily Smith/Emma Kurtz* ...
*Kurtz can't play in two doubles matches. She teamed with Smith in the February match
STANFORD .......................... STANFORD ................
15 Michaela Gordon ........... 03 Arbuthnott/Gordon .........
40 Melissa Lord .............. 84 Kimberly Yee/Lampl ........
43 Emily Arbuthnott
93 Carolyn Lampl
96 Janice Shinn
102 Emma Higuchi
This could go down to the wire!