2016 Women’s Season Preview: #24 Tufts JUMBOs

Location: Medford, MA

Head Coach: Kate Bayard, 10th year

Twitter Handle: @Jumbos_Tennis

2013 National Ranking: #17
2014 National Ranking: #15
2015 National Ranking: #24
2016 Pre-Season National Ranking: #24

Intro:
After a somewhat unexpected down 2015 season, the Jumbos are looking for a fresh start. To recap the 2014-2015 season, the fall season started out with much promise, as then freshman Aandrita Deb got all the way to the semifinals of an absolutely stacked ITA regional. They had 2 fall matches in which they lost 4-5 to MIT and beat Babo 6-3. The spring saw the absence of the aforementioned Deb and then a steady decline in results (similar to Babo’s spring decline when they lost Akgul last year.) They had a couple of very costly losses against Redlands (4-5) and Trinity (4-5), the latter of which kept them out of the NESCAC Conference Tournament for the first time EVER. They did have a pretty good performance against Wesleyan, but wound up losing 4-5. Deb was also able to come back into the lineup (at #6!) but was not effective enough.
Coach Bayard brought in a fairly good recruiting class (#5 on TRN), and lost NO ONE to graduation. There are no seniors on the Tufts roster this year! (Does anyone else notice the youth in these ranked teams so far??? There have been very few seniors in the lineups of teams that I have previewed!) In any case, I expect this Tufts team to go way up from their #24 ranking. To give you some history, Tufts was as high as #5 in the country in 2011, in the Julia Browne era. With some experience for this young but talented squad, I expect this team to be at least in the top 15 in the next 2 years.

Lineup Analysis:

Let’s take a look at my projected lineups for Coach Bayard’s Jumbos
Again, this is a young lineup full of sophomores and freshmen. Coach Bayard has a very even lineup, with the entire #1-#6 players’ UTRs in the range of about 7.0-8.5.

UTR Power6 Rating (the sum of the supposed top 6 players on a team): 46

#1 Singles: Lauren Louks, sophomore, 8.08
Louks had a great weekend at the Bowdoin invitational, beating reigning national runner up Likhanskaia in a super tiebreaker, as well as the Bowdoin #2, Tiffany Cheng (9.07) in straights. Otherwise, her results have been more or less about where her UTR is. If the Bowdoin weekend is an indication of things to come for Louks, she should be a strong #1 for Tufts. If the Bowdoin weekend was an anomaly, Tufts might struggle at the top spots, no matter who plays up there.  Last year, Louks was 12-8 at #3.

#2 Singles: Mina Karamercan, freshman, 8.35
Freshman Karamercan had a couple of strong fall results, beating both Chen from Wellesley and Akgul from Babson handily in the ITAs.

#3-#6 Singles: Tomo Iwasaki, freshman, 8.30; Zoe Miller, sophomore, 7.15; Conner Calabro, junior, 7.90; Alexa Meltzer, junior, 7.50; Julia Keller, freshman, 7.79
I didn’t see Calabro or Meltzer in any of their fall results, but seeing that they are juniors, they were likely abroad. Any one of these 5 players can fill in at any of the #3-#6 positions. Calabro played mostly at #1 and #2 and was 8-12.  Meltzer also played at #1 and #2 and was 9-14.  Miller played mostly at #5-#6 and went 16-6.  With the influx of freshmen, as the season goes on, Coach Bayard has the luxury of switching things up if people need a little confidence boost or a rest.

Doubles:
Hmmm, I’m not even going to attempt to put together doubles pairings for this team. Nonetheless, doubles will be a very important part of their winning formula this season.  Needless to say, with the freshman, there will be a lot of learning.

Schedule Analysis:

Here’s Tufts’s schedule: http://gotuftsjumbos.com/sports/wten/2015-16/schedule
3/20 v Pacific
3/21 v #29 Lewis & Clark
3/22 v #15 Chicago
3/24 at #7 Pomona
3/31 #31 Babson
4/1 Colby
4/2 Bates
4/6 at #9 MIT
4/9 #30 Trinity
4/10 #5 Middlebury
4/14 at #32 Wellesley
4/16 at #28 Brandeis
4/20 at #3 Amherst
4/22 at Conn
4/24 at #17 Wesleyan
4/30 v #8 Bowdoin, #1 Williams
5/6-5/8 NESCACs at Bates

Tufts starts its season off with a west coast spring break trip. First up is Pacific, which is a team that the Jumbos should take care of, but the Pios of Lewis and Clark should be a tough matchup. Although Tufts is favored, L&C would have had a lot more match play up until that point, so they might have the edge there. Should be an interesting match which will show what the young Jumbos are made of. Next up will be Chicago, and that will be an exciting match as well, as it looks like Chicago would be favored in this matchup, BUT it is their first outdoor match and Tufts’ third. UPSET ALERT! The Jumbos close out their trip with a match at Pomona. I think Pomona will have too much talent but it will be fun to see how the youth on both teams react to the competitive environment. If the Jumbos can come out of spring break with 2 or more wins, they are in good shape. However, if they lose 3 or all of these matches, they might come out of spring break with a loss in confidence. In regards to the ever important Pool C, the Chicago match is big. Chicago looks to be a team on the rise, so if Tufts can catch an early win against them, they might be able to get a lot of indirects.
They return home to face the fierce competition in the NE and first up is Babo. I think the Beavers are a bit under-ranked here and if everyone is healthy, and focused on spring tennis, this should be QUITE the match. Next up they host 2 Maine teams in Colby and Bates, and on paper it looks like Tufts should be able to take those matches. Then they are at MIT for what has become an excellent crosstown rivalry. This should be a close match as well this year. Trinity might win a point or two at the top of the lineup but Tufts should take care of them with ease, unlike last year.
Middlebury will probably be too tough for the Jumbos but will be a great learning experience for the team. They should be able to take care of the next two teams, as Brandeis looks to be having a down year, and Wellesley just hasn’t been able to get that one win against a team ranked above them. They will face another tough and experienced team in Amherst. If Tufts can get a couple of points in that match, it will be a good day for them. Next, the Jumbos are in Connecticut for a two match stand v Conn and Wesleyan. Tufts should take care of Conn easily but Wesleyan should be a a great match. I’d definitely give the advantage at the top two spots to Wesleyan, but the rest can go either way. This is also a big big Pool C match. Tufts closes out the regular season with a tough home doubleheader against Bowdoin and Williams. Here’s to hoping they get hot on one day like Louks did at the Bowdoin Invite!
I do think that Tufts comes back into the NESCAC Championships as the 5th or 6th team. As for Pool C, the biggest match I can see on their schedule is the Chicago match! I’m putting this on my calendar as one of the biggest matches of the entire year!

D3NEW’s 3 Keys to Tufts’ Season:

#1. Build match experience. With this young of a squad, the most important thing for this team is to get match experience every time they step on the court and learn from those experiences. With so many good matches scheduled, it’s important that they handle any losses with experience in mind, without too much of a loss in confidence.
#2. Qualify for the NESCAC Championships! This should be a a big deal for them since they missed it last year.
#3. Beat Chicago. This is an extremely big opportunity early on in the season and they need to be ready for it and capitalize. Believe me, Chicago will be a very good team this year. But Tufts can catch them on their back foot since this will be Chicago’s first outdoor match of the year (outdoor tennis is VERY different than indoor tennis) whereas it will be Tufts’ third outdoor match of the year!

Over and out,

NEW