Sophomore trio leads women’s tennis into new season

Here’s a complete listing of schools that have three players in the top 15 of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s singles rankings:

Florida, Stanford.

And those three players for the Cardinal — sophomores Taylor Davidson, Caroline Doyle and Carol Zhao — are actually the youngest players in the starting lineup, as they will be joined by two juniors and a senior in head coach Lele Forood’s starting six to begin the dual season.

So yes, you could say that expectations are high — and rightfully so — for Stanford women’s tennis heading into this season.

“I’m really impressed with how much improvement we’ve shown individually since last season,” Forood said. “Everybody. This is a team that you can’t really look at their results last year and go, ‘That’s who they are,’ because it’s very, very different.”

That’s a scary thought for all of the opponents that stand in the Cardinal’s way this season because last year’s team carved its way to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament. Improving on that? Well, that’s a tough task, but it’s one that this team is more than capable of doing.

While Stanford will have to deal with the departure of stalwart Kristie Ahn ’14, who held down the No. 1 singles spot last season with an iron fist, the three-headed monster of Davidson, Doyle and Zhao waiting in the wings should prove more than adequate in replacing the production of the departed Ahn.

The trio of sophomores played in the No. 3 (Zhao), No. 4 (Davidson) and No. 6 (Doyle) spots of the Cardinal’s starting lineup last season. But according to Forood, they clearly had the best fall seasons of anybody on the team and though the lineups haven’t been set in stone, it wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone to see them leading the charge heading into the dual season in a few weeks.

“When you see three players ranked in the top-13 in the country on one team, you go ‘Wow! That team’s pretty formidable,’” Forood said. “So that’s kind of a little more of what we’re thinking going into this season and not saying, ‘Well, they all played behind Kristie last year…’ and this and that.”

Joining them in a highly experienced Cardinal lineup will likely be juniors Krista Hardebeck and Lindsey Kostas and senior Ellen Tsay. Tsay, the veteran of the group, brings an 80-28 career overall record to the table and has been a formidable force at the bottom of the lineup for her entire career.

Hardebeck, meanwhile, played No. 2 for most of last season, and her gritty effort against Florida in the semifinals of the 2013 NCAA tournament to cap off a monumental comeback was just one of many big performances on big stages that she has contributed — and excelled — in throughout her career.

And finally, Kostas, who started at the No. 6 spot and contributed an impressive 14-6 record her freshman year but couldn’t break through into the singles lineup last year, will round out the starters and bring additional valuable experience to the table.

While the starters have all but been set, the lineup has not — and the order in which the six will roll out against Princeton on Jan. 29 will be set in the coming weeks, depending on the players’ performances in the NCTC Classic and Freeman Invitational this weekend.

Behind them, not too much is known about the corps of freshmen on the roster because they haven’t been eligible to play in matches until now, but Forood said that it would be highly unlikely for a freshman to break into the lineup, especially given the abundance of talent already in the rotation.

That talent will be put to the test early and often by a grueling schedule highlighted by a four-match stretch in late February and early March in which the Cardinal face No. 11 Vanderbilt, No. 2 Duke, No. 3 Florida and No. 7 California in consecutive tilts. That’s not to mention a tough late-March road trip in which the team visits No. 1 UCLA and No. 14 USC on back-to-back days.

So if Stanford women’s tennis is to continue its tradition of excellence and compete for an 18th national title for the program, it will certainly have to earn it. But after making an exhilarating 2013 title run as a No. 12 seed in the tournament and a 2014 Final Four run as a No. 11 seed, adversity is something that this team is familiar with — and doesn’t necessarily mind, either.

Stanford will kick off a highly anticipated spring season on Jan. 29 at home against Princeton, a team that made it into the second round of the NCAA tournament last year.

The road ahead is clear, the stage is set and all of the pieces are in place for another outstanding season. It’s looking like it’s going to be another fun ride.

Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.