Women’s tennis sweeps ITA Northwest Regional Championships

Oct. 26, 2021, 10:30 p.m.

In its 14th consecutive season hosting, Stanford women’s tennis won both singles and doubles titles in the ITA Northwest Regional Championships. The Cardinal dominated the draws on all sides of the brackets — both finals at Taube Family Tennis Center on Tuesday featured only Stanford players.

Freshman Connie Ma captured the singles title before teaming up with No. 87 junior Angelica Blake for the doubles championship. Their opponents in second place were senior Niluka Madurawe and freshman Alexandra Yepifanova, who also stood against Ma in the singles final. 

In singles, Ma continued her streak of straight-set wins when she defeated Yepifanova 6-4, 6-1. Her closest match of the tournament was a 6-4, 6-4 semifinal victory over Mariia Kozyreva of Saint Mary’s College. 

Yepifanova recorded exclusively straight-set wins before the singles final. Coming in as the fifth seed, she successfully upset the No. 1 seed Vanessa Wong of Washington 6-4, 7-6 (3) in the quarterfinals to reach Ma in the championship. 

Blake fell in the quarterfinals of the singles draw to Cal’s Jessica Alsola, who later went on to lose to Yepifanova in the semis. After winning the first set 6-1, Blake went 2-6, 0-6 in the next two to give up the match. 

On the doubles side, playing only one set to six in the first three rounds, Ma and Blake gave up just three games total. In the later pro-set matches, they won the quarterfinal match 8-6 before narrowly defeating Alsola’s Cal team 8-7 (7) in the semifinal. 

Madurawe and Yepifanova played a close quarterfinal win to upset the number four seed 8-7 (7). They then won their semifinal match 8-6 before falling to their Stanford teammates in the final. 

In total, the Cardinal entered seven players in the singles draw and four doubles teams. Beside the four championship players, the furthest player of the draw was freshman Valencia Xu in the round of 16 in the singles and doubles draws, when she partnered with senior Sara Choy. 

Stanford women’s tennis will be back in action at Taube Family Tennis Center on Nov. 5 for the Stanford Invitational, which will run through Nov. 7.

Maya Somers is a staff writer in the sports section. She is a junior from Seattle, Washington interested in studying Human Biology. She enjoys drinking coffee and watching professional tennis highlight reels. Contact her at sports 'at' stanforddaily.com.

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