With two weeks of rest since the Pac-10 Championships, the Stanford women’s tennis team appears ready and eager to pursue postseason success, hosting the first and second rounds of the NCAAs at Taube Family Tennis Stadium.
With a final regular season record of 20-1<\p>–<\p>and an undefeated 8-0 in Pac-10 play<\p>–<\p>the Cardinal succeeded in achieving its main goal for the season: recapturing the Pac-10 title.
The success of the team this season was on full display as Pac-10 and ITA Regional awards were passed out. Junior Hilary Barte was named First Team All-Pac-10. Freshman Mallory Burdette was named Second Team All-Pac and was awarded Pac-10 Freshman of the Year for her 32-5 record overall.
Highlighting the team’s success was the naming of head coach Lele Forood as Pac-10 Coach of the Year in one of the most competitive conferences. This is the fourth time she has won the award during her career on the Farm<\p>–<\p>she has a 253-16 record over 10 years.
Adding to Pac-10 honors, the team reaped awards from the ITA Northwest Regional. Out of 15 teams from several different leagues, Mallory Burdette was named ITA Rookie of the Year, Barte was given the ITA Player to Watch award and Forood took home the Wilson/ITA Coach of the Year honor. Despite the accolades, Forood is still curious how her team will handle postseason play.
“Every team is different,” she said. “It’s really a different cast of people. This team had a better finish to the regular season [than past years]. And it’s a younger team, so we’ll see what that means as far as how we’re going to handle it.”
Looking forward to NCAAs, Stanford has two participants in the singles tournament and one team in doubles. Barte and Burdette will compete in NCAA singles. Barte was given the No. 4 seed overall in the tournament. In doubles, she will team up with senior Lindsay Burdette as the second seed overall.
As a team, the Cardinal will face Fairfield in the first round. Fairfield earned an automatic berth into the tournament by winning the MAAC Tournament title.
“I’m not sure what to expect from them,” Barte said. “We don’t really know anything about them, but everyone is pretty excited to just start the tournament.”
“It’s really important to keep in mind that yes, this is NCAA and yes, everyone talks about it. But at the same time, we have to remember that it is just another match,” Barte said. “It’s important to keep that in perspective, especially for the freshmen. It’s their first chance to see all the other teams. I think they might be overwhelmed at first, but I’m hoping I can tell them to keep doing what they’re doing.”
This means trouble for Fairfield, despite coming in riding an eight-match winning streak and a near-record-setting year for their school. Since the two teams’ schedules do not overlap, the one thing the Stags do have is the element of surprise, but for Forood that isn’t a problem.
“It’s kind of a good thing in the first round; because when you get to this point in the season, you don’t want to emphasize too much who you’re playing,” Forood said. “You don’t want to do too much game planning. You just want people to get themselves ready to perform as close to capability as can possibly be.”
Stanford will take on Fairfield at 2 p.m. today at Taube Family Tennis Stadium.