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ZachTheZip

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah they are playing well, though i'm surprised we have Harutyunyan still at first singles. I see her as more of a doubles player from the three matches i've seen of hers. She's struggled, losing all five singles matches since we began dual match play. At the same time, Angelina Jogasuria has won all five of hers (most in straight sets) at 2nd singles.

Don't know how they challenge at the college level but i'm surprised Angelina hasn't yet for first singles.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Zara is the best player on the team, trust me. You have to remember, she is playing the other team's best players, and she has played a lot of highly ranked players this year. There are a lot of teams that have a really great #1, but dont have the depth that Akron has (I never thought those words would come out of my mouth).

And as for challenges. There really aren't "challenges" at the college level. Coach puts you wherever he/she thinks you should be based on ability. You are not allowed to "match up" players for matches, but you can alternate players of similar ability and records between positions for different matches, but are not allowed to try to match up which player will play best against an opponent.

Zara is a great doubles player, but in college, you play both. Doubles is important, but you have to remember, you only get 1 point for the doubles. If you win at least 2 out of the 3 doubles matches, you get 1 point. Having her play only doubles would not help the team all that much.

It is great to see the team doing well. I had no idea how things would go with the new coach, but it seems as if things are going pretty well. Go Zips

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That's the one pet peeve I have with High School tennis....Is that I know a lot of coaches that'll "STACK" their lineup to give them the best shot to win the match...it's not the way it should be, but you can't do anything about it...

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That's the one pet peeve I have with High School tennis....Is that I know a lot of coaches that'll "STACK" their lineup to give them the best shot to win the match...it's not the way it should be, but you can't do anything about it...

I'm not sure what "stacking" means. I went to the Hawaii men's tennis vs Michigan last weekend. Hawaii's best player played #3 singles, and just lost to a former HS all-American, ranked top 30 nationally. Somehow Hawaii won two of the three other singles matches, but lost the doubles and the overall match. It was only the second time I've attended, and was interesting. Free pizza! ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...
That's the one pet peeve I have with High School tennis....Is that I know a lot of coaches that'll "STACK" their lineup to give them the best shot to win the match...it's not the way it should be, but you can't do anything about it...

I'm not sure what "stacking" means. I went to the Hawaii men's tennis vs Michigan last weekend. Hawaii's best player played #3 singles, and just lost to a former HS all-American, ranked top 30 nationally. Somehow Hawaii won two of the three other singles matches, but lost the doubles and the overall match. It was only the second time I've attended, and was interesting. Free pizza! ;)

Stacking is when a team plays their best player not at the right position. You're supposed to have your best tennis player at #1 singles, #2 singles usually your 2nd,3rd, or 4th best player(depends on the quality of the #1 doubles team), and then the doubles, and usually the 3rd singles...

For example

random names

Original Lineup

1st singles- Young

2nd singles- McLaughlin

3rd singles- McFerren

1st doubles- Frankhouser-Clayton

2nd doubles- Cline-Beckett

"Stacked" Lineup

1st singles- Cline

2nd singles- Beckett

3rd singles- Young

1st doubles-McLaughlin-McFerren or McLaughlin-Clayton

2nd doubles- Frankhouser-Clayton or Frankhouser-McFerren

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College tennis is a little different than that as typically you play both doubles and singles. Your best player plays 1 and on down through 6. For doubles, you have to play based on the strength of the team. You dont have to have your best player play #1 doubles. A lot of times, your best singles player is far from your best doubles player. Sometimes, you ever have a "doubles specialist", which in this scenario is basically a player that is really really good at doubles but can't quite make the top 6 in singles. For doubles, you play in order of strength of the doubles team. You can change pairings from match to match, but you still have to have your strongest doubles team playing 1.

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That's the one pet peeve I have with High School tennis....Is that I know a lot of coaches that'll "STACK" their lineup to give them the best shot to win the match...it's not the way it should be, but you can't do anything about it...

I'm not sure what "stacking" means. I went to the Hawaii men's tennis vs Michigan last weekend. Hawaii's best player played #3 singles, and just lost to a former HS all-American, ranked top 30 nationally. Somehow Hawaii won two of the three other singles matches, but lost the doubles and the overall match. It was only the second time I've attended, and was interesting. Free pizza! ;)

Did the pizza have pineapple and ham on it?

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That's the one pet peeve I have with High School tennis....Is that I know a lot of coaches that'll "STACK" their lineup to give them the best shot to win the match...it's not the way it should be, but you can't do anything about it...

I'm not sure what "stacking" means. I went to the Hawaii men's tennis vs Michigan last weekend. Hawaii's best player played #3 singles, and just lost to a former HS all-American, ranked top 30 nationally. Somehow Hawaii won two of the three other singles matches, but lost the doubles and the overall match. It was only the second time I've attended, and was interesting. Free pizza! ;)

Did the pizza have pineapple and ham on it?

No RFR -- it's HAWAII! Poi and pig. :P

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Our new coach is bringing in two players from Russia and/or Ukraine (hard to tell from the write-up). And one of them is just fifteen years old (15). Imagine the social difficulties this could present -- she could be dating students over 18, but guys, be aware! Makes you go, "Hmmmmmm".

Shkundina, a native of Ufa, Russia, is currently ranked 635th by the ETA (Tennis Europe) among women of all ages in limited playing time, but saw her ranking climb as high as 36th. Her resume includes reaching the doubles semifinals and the singles round of 16 at the Eddie Herr Championships, and victories over eight players ranked in the top-800 in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) world rankings, including three over top-300 players.

"Olga has had minimal opportunities to travel for tournament play since 2008, and her ranking has shown this; however, her level of play is outstanding, as seen by her impressive resume," Padgett said. "We expect Olga to come in and add significant depth to our line-up, with the strong possibility of playing fairly high in our lineup as a freshman."

Shkundina is the younger sister of Vera Shkundina, who played for Padgett at Kennesaw State and is that program's current No. 1 singles player. Olga, who is 15, will be one of the youngest student-athletes to ever compete in women's tennis at the Division I level. Padgett just completed his first year as coach at Akron after spending the previous three-plus seasons as head coach at Kennesaw State.

"Olga will be, what we believe, is the youngest-ever collegiate student-athlete to play a match,'' Padgett added. ''She is only 15, but with her ability, she can come in and play with anyone on our team right now.''

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She looks fairly solid...and it makes sense to see someone of her age coming over to play collegiately. If you are college age (18-23) and playing college tennis, there isn't much of a chance you will be playing professionally...at least on the tour. Girls especially would already be long turned pro by the time they are in their 20's, so this sort of arrangement could definitely be a good route to go in building a great program. Give them a free education all while getting them some decent competition on their way to a possible pro career.

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  • 7 months later...
Once again, Tennis is starting out the season on a hot streak. They're 3-0 with wins over Penn State, Michigan State, and Louisville all on the road. Hopefully we'll have another ranked team on campus (or off campus, since they compete somewhere else for their "home" matches).

Different year, different coach, same story as the tennis team gets off to a 2-0 start with 7-0 and 5-2 wins at Oakland and Michigan State respectively.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As I said last year, I love seeing us beat big-name BCS schools in any sport. It helps that tennis is relatively good, but the scheduling is highly intelligent too. MSU and WVU are the bottom dwellers of their conferences yet these appear to Joe Akron to be huge wins (i.e. if Joe Akron cares about or notices woman's tennis). Nonetheless, beating BCS bottom dwellers demonstrates that we at least belong in the conversation when it comes to being competitive at the BCS level and discussions of conference realignment. I would like to see basketball take more of this approach. It has already been the topic of another thread, and I digress...

Akron woman's tennis is now very good and is an uppity sport. I wish we had the commensurate indoor and outdoor facilities on campus in place of the parking lot behind the field house. A men's team would also be a nice addition.

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As I said last year, I love seeing us beat big-name BCS schools in any sport. It helps that tennis is relatively good, but the scheduling is highly intelligent too. MSU and WVU are the bottom dwellers of their conferences yet these appear to Joe Akron to be huge wins (i.e. if Joe Akron cares about or notices woman's tennis). Nonetheless, beating BCS bottom dwellers demonstrates that we at least belong in the conversation when it comes to being competitive at the BCS level and discussions of conference realignment. I would like to see basketball take more of this approach. It has already been the topic of another thread, and I digress...

Akron woman's tennis is now very good and is an uppity sport. I wish we had the commensurate indoor and outdoor facilities on campus in place of the parking lot behind the field house. A men's team would also be a nice addition.

Nice thought, but Title IX ain't ever going to allow a men's team to appear.

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I have been meaning to make it out to a women's tennis match these last couple of years. Tennis is my favorite sport as I am first singles varsity at Norton. It is amazing what the Akron tennis program has accomplished as of late. Very solid wins this year, too.

I really wish there as a men's team here, though. Title IX really killed American tennis because instead of having many choices for DI tennis, they are left with the SEC, PAC 12, Big 10, and some other random DI conferences. However, most of those teams are full of the best players in the world, not just America, hurting American tennis with all of the international players. DIII and DII tennis has actually improved because of this.

Really looking forward to seeing how far the Zips can go this year, and in the future. Go Zips!

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I have been meaning to make it out to a women's tennis match these last couple of years. Tennis is my favorite sport as I am first singles varsity at Norton. It is amazing what the Akron tennis program has accomplished as of late. Very solid wins this year, too.

I really wish there as a men's team here, though. Title IX really killed American tennis because instead of having many choices for DI tennis, they are left with the SEC, PAC 12, Big 10, and some other random DI conferences. However, most of those teams are full of the best players in the world, not just America, hurting American tennis with all of the international players. DIII and DII tennis has actually improved because of this.

Really looking forward to seeing how far the Zips can go this year, and in the future. Go Zips!

I was watching the Buffalo sports recap show on STO the other day, and I was very surprised to see that U@B has a men's tennis program.

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