No. 25 Stanford women’s tennis (13-6, 6-4 ACC) fell to No. 7 North Carolina (17-4, 8-1 ACC) and No. 4 Duke (18-2, 10-0 ACC) in back-to-back home matches at Taube Pavilion over the weekend. The losses followed last week’s wins on the road against Miami (9-10, 4-6 ACC) and Florida State (13-7, 4-6 ACC).
Saturday’s 3-4 loss against Duke was on senior night for the Cardinal, marking the last regular season home match and celebrating the college careers of seniors Valencia Xu, Sasha Yepifanova and Connie Ma. Xu and Ma both collected senior night wins while Yepifanova recovered from injuries.
“This is Stanford women’s tennis,” head coach Frankie Brennan declared about the seniors, praising their work ethic, dedication to the team and ability to balance school, career and tennis.
Brennan held back tears as he read a long list of awards earned by the three seniors over the past four years, stating that if Ma weren’t heading to medical school and Yepifanova weren’t starting a job at Apple, they’d be ready for the pro tour.
Yepifanova said that she had met both Ma and Xu prior to their freshmen years at junior opens and other tournaments in high school, but did not expect to grow so close.
“I was unbelievably lucky to have them on my side,” she said in an interview with The Daily after the match. “I’ll miss it so much. It was seriously so, so special.”
Ma said that she also had never expected to bond so much with the team.
“The last four years have certainly been a roller coaster with a lot of emotion, but there’s no one that I’d rather have had to go through it with [than Sasha and Valencia],” Ma said to The Daily. “It’s kind of surreal to see how far we’ve come from freshman year to now.”
Xu concurred with her gratitude for her senior classmates.
“I’m so glad I got to spend my four years with them,” she said.
Ma said some of her favorite memories from the four years were the three Pac-12 tournaments she competed in with Xu and Yepifanova — and winning them all three consecutive years. For Ma, senior night had come fast.
“I feel like everyone in college kind of thinks of this day and dreams of this day,” she said. “I can’t really believe that it’s happening. It’s over.”
Friday’s 0-4 match against North Carolina began with top doubles pairing No. 23-ranked freshman Valerie Glozman and Ma losing 4-6, as well as third doubles pairing freshman Morgan Shaffer and junior Emma Sun losing 1-6. With the doubles point won by North Carolina, second doubles pairing junior Caroline Driscoll and graduate student Chidimma Okpara left their match unfinished at 6-6.
Line six singles Sun retired during the first set at 0-5 due to an injury, tipping the score to 0-2 North Carolina. Okpara lost in a 6-2, 1-6, 1-6 three-set match at No. 4, followed soon after by a straight-set 5-7, 4-6 loss by Driscoll at No. 3 singles. With the match decided, Ma, Glozman and Shaffer did not finish their matches.
The Cardinal rallied hard against Duke the following day, fighting for the doubles point with a win by second doubles pairing Driscoll and Xu with a score of 6-2. Glozman and Ma lost at No. 1 doubles with a score of 2-6, and Duke clinched the doubles point with third doubles pairing Okpara and Shaffer falling 2-6.
Duke took home another point with No. 6 singles Sun falling 0-6, 0-6. The Cardinal came back as 13th-ranked Ma decisively won her singles match against Duke’s 14th-ranked Irina Balus 6-1, 6-1, marking her final regular season home match of her college career. The Blue Devils took the next match, as No. 5 Shaffer lost 2-6, 0-6.
Stanford responded with a win from line two singles Glozman, the eighth-ranked player in the country, with a 7-6, 6-0 to move to 26-5 overall and 12-5 against nationally-ranked opponents in her rookie season. Driscoll won her first ranked win next, with a 6-4, 6-4 score to tie up the match 3-3. On the fourth and last court, Okpara nearly forced a third set, coming back from 0-3 in the second set to lead 5-4, but Eleana Yu, former Stanford teammate, who transferred to Duke after last season, clinched the win for Duke with three straight games.
Stanford will end its regular season on the road, heading to North Carolina. The Cardinal will play at Wake Forest (14-10, 3-7 ACC) on Friday and No. 12 NC State (13-5, 8-2 ACC) on Sunday. Stanford will prolong their stay in North Carolina for the ACC Championship, which begins on Tuesday, April 15.