The Cal women’s tennis team might rank seventh on The Daily Californian’s Power Rankings right now, but expect the young squad to jump much higher in coming years.
The team, which finished the year ranked at No. 9 in the country and made it to the elite eight of the NCAA tournament, is retaining virtually all of its top players.
At the beginning of the year, Zsofi Susanyi came in playing on the top court for Cal. She plays solid, all-around tennis, waiting for her opponent to make a mistake — something she can afford to do because she rarely makes any herself. When she plays, her intensity shows in a way that is only reminiscent of elite players — imagine an on-the-court personality like that of Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods.
And Susanyi wasn’t just the best player for the Bears — she was briefly tied for the top spot in the entire country.
But when injuries sent Susanyi out of the lineup for much of her sophomore season, incoming senior Anett Schutting rose to take her place.
Schutting’s aggressive, win-first mentality enabled her to put together an 11-5 record on the top court in singles, and she soon rose in the ranks to the top 10 in the country.
While Susanyi battled injuries and Schutting battled top opponents, two freshmen were tearing up the court for the Bears. Lynn Chi played as high as the No. 2 court when Susanyi was out, posting an 8-2 record when she did so. Shortly after that, Klara Fabikova rose in the lineup, using her powerful shots to also ascend to the No. 2 court, where she put up a 5-1 record.
For those of you keeping track at home, that leaves Cal with at least two players (Schutting and Susanyi) who have proven themselves on the No. 1 court and two more (Chi and Fabikova) who are more than capable of winning consistently on the No. 2 court.
Let that sink in for a moment. Not all those players can play on the top two courts, which means that two of them will be picking off opponents on courts No. 3 and No. 4.
That young roster led to a win over Stanford, the eventual NCAA champions, for the first time in four years. The team also topped tough opponents like then-No. 6 USC and then-No. 4 UCLA and was only knocked out of the NCAA tournament by top-ranked Florida in a close match, 4-2.
If the team can live up to the hype, it will be one of the best Cal teams in recent years.
Consider things from head coach Amanda Augustus’ perspective. She has been chasing an NCAA championship since the ’90s, when she played for Cal. When she got the coaching job in 2007, she immediately reached the finals in her first two seasons but could never pull off the big win.
But if she has a recruiting class to fill courts No. 5 and No. 6 that is as good as the Chi-Fabikova class she brought in last year, the coach will have as good of a chance at a title as she has ever had.
Contact Riley McAtee at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @riley_mcatee