2024-25 Shocker Women's Tennis

[1972Shocker]

WTEN Preview: AAC Individual Championships

Three members of the Wichita State women's tennis team will head to Rice's George R. Brown Tennis Center in Houston, Texas to compete in the 2024 AAC Individual Championships October 24-27.

Tennis players from all 13 American Athletic Conference women's tennis teams will travel to Houston to compete in the championship. Each team is sending two players to compete in singles, as well as one doubles pairing. The Shockers are sending Kristina Kudryavtseva and Giorgia Roselli to compete in singles and Roselli will team up with Theodora Chantava to compete in doubles.

The singles and doubles champion of each bracket will represent the American Athletic Conference at the 2024 ITA Conference Masters Championship November 7-10 in Rome, Georgia.

Women's Singles - Thursday, October 24 (Top 6 seeds receive a bye)
Kristina Kudryavtseva 15.6 (WSU) vs Ekua Youri 16.1 (UTSA)
Giorgia Roselli 15.5 (WSU) vs. 16.8 Micah Pierce (Tulane)

Women's Doubles - Thursday, October 24 (Top 3 seeds receive a bye)
Giorgia Roselli 17.1/Theodora Chantava 17.4 (WSU) vs. Gresi Bajri 23.9/VanessaMellynchuk 16.3 (UAB)

The number behind each players name is their International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Number which provides a global standard for players. It is a 40-1 scale, with 40 being a beginner player and 1 being an elite professional. Players have separate ITF World Tennis Numbers for singles and doubles.

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My guess is that the Shocks did not send XTN because the winners of the singles and doubles brackets advance to the ITA Conference Masters Championship which is another potential route to a spot in the NCAA Individual Championships which XTN has already qualified for as a result her runner-up finish at ITA Central Region Championships singles final last week.

It would be a major upset if any of the Shockers advance to the ITA Conference Masters out of this tournament but we'll see how it goes.

[SubGod22]

Go Shockers - Chantava, Roselli Duo Advance to AAC Quarterfinals

Sophomore Giorgia Roselli shined on the opening day of the 2024 AAC Individual Championships, picking up a singles win and teaming up with Theodora Chantava to collect a doubles win on Thursday at George R. Brown Tennis Center.

The duo of Roselli and Chantava began the day with a dispatching of UAB's Gresi Bajiri and Vanessa Mellynchuk, 8-4 to advance to Friday's doubles quarterfinals.

In singles, Roselli remained dominant, crushing Tulane's Micah Pierce 6-2, 6-0 to punch her ticket into the singles round of 16 against two-seed Leonie Moeller of Memphis.

In the round of 16 match, Roselli grabbed the advantage with a swift 6-1 first set win, but Moeller responded immediately with a 6-3 victory in set two. Roselli put Moeller on the ropes in set three, jumping out to an early 5-2 lead, but the Memphis standout won four straight games to take a 6-5 advantage. Roselli would respond with a win in the next game to force a tiebreak to decide the match. Moeller took an early 4-0 lead, but would slip up, allowing Roselli to come back and even the tiebreak at 6-6. Roselli had a chance to end the match up 8-7 in the tiebreak, but a close call went the Tiger way and continued the match. The momentum then swung back to Moeller, who closed out the win in the breaker 10-8 to win the match and advance to the singles quarterfinals.

Kristina Kudryavtseva fell in her opening round singles match to Ekua Youri of UTSA, 7-5, 6-3, knocking her into the singles consolation bracket.

The Shocker doubles team of Roselli and Chantava will play tomorrow at 10am against East Carolina's Ines Bachir and Xenia Jeromin for a spot in the semifinals.

Kudryavtseva will play a consolation match tomorrow afternoon against either Lou Chalard of North Texas or Sienna Leeson of South Florida.

[SubGod22]

[1972Shocker]

Giorgia oh so close to the big upset against the No. 2 seed in the singles. Just could not close it out.

That tiebreaker in ECU doubles match was 7-5. So that match was about as close and as competitive as you could get. It will be interesting to see how they fare tomorrow against the FAU team that is the No. 1 seed. The other two teams in the semis are the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the doubles.

Kristina Kudryavtseva (15.6) was schedule to play the No. 1 singles seed, Victoria Gomez O'Hayon (12.9) of FAU, in Consolation Round of 16 but O'Hayon withdrew so Kristina moves on to the Consolation quarterfinals and will play Lou Chalard (17.8) North Texas.

Update: Kristina moved into the consolation semifinals when her opponent from North Texas retired due to injury with their match tied at 2-6, 6-3. in the semfinals Kristina lost to Tulans's Leigh Van Zyl 4-6, 5-7 to finish off her singles play.

In the doubles semifinals Gio and Theodora lost a competitive match to the No.1 seed from FAU 3-6, 6-1 and the 6-10 in the super tie-breaker in lieu of a 3rd set.

Sounds like Kristina, Geo and Theodora were pretty competitive in this tournament.

[1972Shocker]

At the Tulsa Invitational on the first weekend of November the Shockers played a hidden dual format against Tulsa, North Texas and Central Arkansas.

In singles play the Shockers were led by Giorgia Roselli nad Theodora Chantava who both went 3-0. Sati Aubikirova went 2-1. Kristina Kudryavtseva, Anne Kneuttel and Clara Whitaker all went 1-2. XTW did not play in the singles competition. Overall the Shocks went 11-7 in singles play.

In doubles Clara and Sati went 2-0, XTW and Gio went 2-1 and Theodora and Kristina went 2-1 to finish at 6-2.

https://goshockers.com/documents/2024/11/4/Fall05.pdf

That will finish off the fall season for everyone except XTW who will be competing in the NCAA Individual Championships from beginning on November 19th in Waco, Texas.

[1972Shocker]

Foster Inks Miami Transfer Nikolenko

Women's tennis head coach Colin Foster announced the addition of former Miami Hurricane Tatyana Nikolenko to his squad's 2024-25 roster on Tuesday afternoon.

Nikolenko, a native of Oskemen, Kazakhstan, joins the Shockers after a year away from college tennis. She spent the 2022 and 2023 spring seasons competing for coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews at Miami.

"Tatyana brings a ton of international and college experience with her to our team," said Foster. "She is excited to reenter college tennis and bring that experience she has to this group."

In her time in the Sunshine State, Nikolenko picked up wins over opponents from Texas, Notre Dame, Louisville, Boston College, UCF, and Stetson. This includes two singles wins from the 2022 NCAA National Championship.

Nikolenko competed in doubles at Miami largely with Maya Tahan, who is now an assistant coach for the Shockers. The duo went 5-4 competing together across two years at Miami.

Nikolenko will provide winning experience to the Shocker lineup, coming from a Miami team that went 35-14 overall in her time there, including three match wins at the NCAA Tennis National Championship.

Prior to Miami, Nikolenko enjoyed a very successful career at the junior level, being ranked as high as No. 53 in the ITF Junior rankings in January of 2021. She is currently ranked No. 1339 by the Women's Tennis Association. She competed in both the 2021 Wimbledon Junior Championship and the US Open Junior Championship. Additionally, she won five junior titles including one J2, three J3 events, and one J4.

"We've had a great fall semester already and made significant progress," said Foster "To have someone familiar with college tennis joining this team in January will help her acclimate quickly."

The 5-7 Nikolenko will arrive at Wichita State in the spring and will be classified as a junior. The 2024-25 women's tennis roster now sits at eight players.

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Sounds like new Shocker assistant Maya Tahan was probably instrumental in recruiting Tatyana. Her ITF WTN is 16.7 in singles and 15.9 in doubles.

The Shocker's top players have ITF WTNs as follows:
5-5 So. Xin Tong Wang 12.7/12.6
5-2 So. Giorgia Roselli 14.6/16.9
6-1 Jr. Theodora Chantava 15.9/17.1
5-6 Jr. Kristina Kudryavtseva 16.3/18.5
5-6 Sr. Anne Knuettel 17.2/13.6
___Fr. Sati Aubakirova 20.5/25.5
5-9 Sr. Clara Whitaker (Does Not Have a ITF WTN)

[1972Shocker]

WTEN Preview: NCAA Singles Championship

Wichita State women's tennis sophomore Xin Tong Wang will open play in the 2024 NCAA Singles Championship on Tuesday morning at Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center.

Wang qualified for nationals after advancing to the ITA Central Region Singles Final back in October, where she fell in three sets to No. 11 ranked Anastasiya Komar of Oklahoma State. She was the first Shocker to make it to the regional final since Sandy Sadler, who won the region singles title in 1983.

Wang became the first Shocker to qualify for nationals since Fatima BIzhukova in 2018 and is looking to become the first Shocker to ever record a match victory in singles at the NCAA Individual Championships. The six other NCAA Singles qualifiers in Shocker history have all lost in the first round.

Wang's long journey to the championship begins with a round of 64 battle against California Golden Bear Katja Wiersholm. Wiersholm is a senior at Cal and finished last senior ranked No. 65 by the ITA in singles. Wiersholm was ranked at No. 33 in singles in the August 27 ITA Top 125 Preseason Poll.

Wang is currently 9-2 in singles this fall and all but one of her wins have come against a power four opponent.

A win will thrust Wang into the round of 32 where she will face the winner of South Carolina's Sarah Hamner and Duke's Eleana Yu.

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This would be a huge upset if XTN could knock of Cal's #33 ranked Wiersholm.

[1972Shocker]

Unfortunate ending to XTW's fall season. She was hanging tough.

At least she might get another shot at as she is only a sophomore.

Hopefully, her injury is not too serious and she will be ready to go once the Spring season rolls around.