The Stories from Women’s ITA Indoors

Believe it or not, D3 women’s tennis exists. And while I sincerely apologize that we haven’t done a great job covering it the past six months, rest assured that I will be periodically updating you before or after important tournaments/matches. How fitting is it that on International Women’s Day, we are posting our first women’s tennis article of 2017? Anyway, this past weekend, eight of the top 20 teams in the country duked it out in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at ITA Indoors. It was a fun tournament to watch that ended in dramatic fashion, with Emory defeating Pomona-Pitzer in a 5-4 thriller, coming down to a third set at #3 singles. Interestingly, almost every team played to its seed. Below are the final results followed by seeds in parenthesis:

1. Emory (1)
2. Pomona-Pitzer (2)
3. Chicago (3)
4. Wash U (4)
5. Carnegie Mellon (5)
6. Johns Hopkins (7)
7. Sewanee (6)
8. Mary Washington (8)

I guess I’m pretty surprised that despite big changes to more than a couple of these teams (graduation, etc…) they basically finished where you would have expected them to last year.

Anyway, this post isn’t meant to be an extensive recap of Indoors, because frankly, I don’t have quite enough knowledge to talk about every single team. But, here are some of the big stories.

Live stats could have been better.

I don’t want to start pointing my finger at specific athletic departments or tennis organizations, but I was a bit disappointed with the live stats this weekend. The most obvious problem was that there was only one page of live stats. This meant that when matches overlapped (for instance, if one match was at 4-4 and another match had just started), there weren’t live stats available for both matches. So, if fans weren’t watching the live stream, they had to patiently wait. The next problem was that there were live stats errors. I recall at least one instance where the live stats had shown for a couple hours that a team had swept doubles when in reality the score was 2-1. Again, if you weren’t watching the live stream, you wouldn’t have known the correct score. I understand that mistakes happen, which is why you typically don’t see me complaining, and I’ve witnessed first-hand how difficult operating live stats is, but showing the wrong team winning a doubles match for two hours is not very excusable. On their own, I’m not pleased with the live stats at Indoors, but I’m more so concerned for May…

I’m concerned that Sewanee is hosting NCAAs.

It’s a tall order for a school to host ITA Indoors, but it’s an even greater task to host NCAAs. Given that Sewanee hosted ITA Indoors and is hosting NCAAs in May, I’m a bit skeptical about what to expect on the live stats front. Someone told me that Sewanee used Indoors as its “test run,” and I hope they work out the kinks for NCAAs. I don’t know how staffing for Indoors or NCAAs works, but I hope there are enough people around to ensure accurate live stats.

The top three teams were a tier above the rest.

Emory, Pomona, and Chicago proved themselves as premier teams. Each of them could easily advance to the Final Four, but the next best teams at Indoors — Wash U and Carnegie — may have a tough time making the tournament (especially given the strength of the NESCAC). What separated the Eagles, Sagehens, and Maroons from the rest was stellar singles play and depth.

Wash U will only be as successful as its doubles lineup.

The Bears are in a bit of a tough spot. They just don’t have the singles talent necessary to defeat top teams. Sure, they have a top-5 national player in Rebecca Ho, but the rest of the lineup has a difficult time competing against other top teams. Just look at the singles results this weekend. When they squeaked past CMU in the first round, the Bears won 2 singles matches. Against Emory in the semis, they won 1, and against Chicago, they were on track to winning 1, but technically didn’t take any singles points, since the match went to decision. That said, Wash U swept doubles against Carnegie and had a 2-1 lead over Chicago. I think good things can happen to the Bears only if they take doubles leads.

Caroline Casper, Bridget Harding, and Rebecca Ho are filthy good.

At this point, I’m hesitant to say that any of these players can contend for the national title in singles, considering the success of Wesleyan’s Eudice Chong and Williams’ Juli Raventos, but you never know, especially given their level of play this weekend. Reading some blog posts from last year, there were apparently rumblings that Harding playing 1 for the Eagles was a stack. Well, after winning the D3 Oracle Cup in the fall and falling in tight 3-setters this past weekend to Casper and Ho, those thoughts should be put to rest. Harding is the real deal. Ho’s freshmen through junior seasons had a lot of ups, and the Bear has come out swinging in her final season as well, going undefeated at Indoors. I’m optimistic that she is going to keep up this level of play. Finally, I heard that Caroline Casper was the most impressive player at Indoors and going 3-0 is huge. Anyway, watch out for each of these players at NCAAs.

Even without Joy Kim, Pomona is an NCAA title contender.

Throughout the last year and a half, stud Joy Kim has missed several matches (most likely due to injury). For those of you that don’t know, Kim is a sophomore that had an incredibly strong freshmen campaign, even playing 1 over Caroline Casper for much of the season. Unfortunately, Joy missed Indoors this year, yet even without her, the Sagehens were 1 set away from the title. That just shows Pomona’s depth. The sad thing is that even if Pomona is a national title contender, they may not advance to the Elite 8 because they will most likely face CMS in the round of 16.

Graduation/transferring never hurts the Eagles.

Taylor Cosme, Beatrice Rosen, and Madison Gordon are no longer members of Emory’s team. Cosme transferred to D1 Brown (where she is on a tear, destroying her opponents at #6 singles) while Rosen and Gordon graduated. The three comprised half of Emory’s singles lineup last year. But, as has been the case with each of Amy Bryant’s teams, Emory is good regardless of the talent they lost.

Carnegie Mellon has a very good shot of taking third place at UAAs.

It’s kind of interesting how similar the results of the CMU/Wash U match at women’s Indoors were to the CMU Wash U match at men’s Indoors. In both, Wash U stormed to a 3-0 lead, and CMU’s singles comeback fell just short. Each time, the Tartans lost 5-4. Poor Andy Girard. Unfortunately, that means that Carnegie will most likely be the four-seed at the conference tournament, most likely facing Emory in the semis (though I wouldn’t sleep on Case if CMU meets the Spartans in the first round). At this point, I project Carnegie and Wash U squaring off in the third place match. As I established, I’m not overly high on Wash U in singles, so if the Tartans squeeze out just 1 doubles point, I like their chances of beating the Bears.

Chicago is closer to a Final Four than expected.

The Maroons have been on the rise the past couple years, and I assumed that they would continue that trend this year but wouldn’t be able to compete with the top 5 or so teams. However, Chicago was pretty close to beating Pomona, and the singles lineup seems strong and deep. In order to contend with those very top teams, the Maroons have to work out their kinks in doubles. They were down 2-1 to Pomona and Wash U. If the Maroons are stronger in doubles, big things can happen.

Sewanee, Johns Hopkins, and Mary Washington could fall outside the top 15.

One of my first story lines was that Emory, Pomona, and Chicago were a tier above the rest. If I had to place Indoors participants in tiers, they would be:

1. Emory, Pomona, Chicago
2. Wash U, Carnegie
3. Johns Hopkins, Sewanee, Mary Washington

Hopkins had an epic 5-4 win over Sewanee, Sewanee defeated Mary Washington 5-4, but Carnegie easily cruised past Hopkins. I know I’m relying on the transitive property here, but there are several teams outside the top 15 that I think could have a chance of passing Sewanee, Hopkins, and Mary Washington

Overall, I truly enjoyed watching Indoors this past weekend, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the seasons of each team pan out.