One for the record books

Washington's 2019 Season Turned Heads; Sets The Table For More

By Washington Huskies

May 31^st, 2019

The Washington women’s tennis team put together one of the best seasons in program history in 2019, winning a record number of conference matches, equaling the second-best win total in dual matches and finishing with its third-highest final ITA ranking.

Washington’s 2018-19 season was its finest in nearly two decades as the Huskies posted a 21-5 record in dual matches and reaching the NCAA Round of 16 for fourth time in program history. UW’s 21 victories matched the most since the program joined the NCAA in 1983 with its .808 winning percentage ranking as the best over that time.

The Huskies also went 8-2 to finish tied for second in the Pac-12 with their most wins in program history. They also hosted the NCAA Tournament first and second rounds for the first time in 15 years.

Guiding the team was fifth-year head coach Robin Stephenson, who became just the second coach in program history to earn Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors.

“Going into the year with so many new players, we knew we could be a really good team, and we went into the season wanting to see just how good we could be,” said Stephenson. “That mentality helped us because we went into every match trying to prove ourselves. We didn’t set many result or ranking based goals and the main thing this year was to learn and grow together and to continue pushing each other to be our best.”

Coming off an incredibly frustrating end of the 2018 season which saw the team finish 16-11 and fail to reach the NCAA Tournament, Washington was looking to get off to a quick start in 2019.

The Huskies opened the year strong, winning its first five matches before a tough loss to No. 2 Vanderbilt in the first match of the ITA Team Indoor Championships. But Washington would rebound with its first of many upsets, beating No. 14 North Carolina State 4-3 with freshman Nika Zupancic recording match-clinching win on court six.

After that victory, Washington entered the national rankings at No. 25 after being unranked through the first half of the year.

Three weeks later, the Huskies again pulled off a head-turning upset with a 4-3 home win over No. 7 Kansas. Sophomore Vanessa Wong earned the clinching point on court two, upsetting the 79th-ranked Jayhawk's player.

The victory over Kansas moved the Huskies record to 10-1 and saw the team jump from No. 22 to No. 7 in the ITA rankings released on March 5.

“We had a lot of new players this year, so we set up the schedule to try to win a lot of matches early on,” said Stephenson. “Once we got to NC State and Kansas, we had a lot of confidence—the girls had won a lot and played a lot. Those matches really helped us to believe. Beating NC State at the ITA Indoor Championships gave us the belief that we could compete with anyone in the country. That win against Kansas where we lost the doubles point then won a lot of close, difficult matches set the tone for the rest of the season. The biggest thing we took out of that was the belief.”

Washington opened Pac-12 play with six-straight wins to run their program-best start to 16-1. Along that stretch, the Huskies picked up a 4-1 win over No. 50 Arizona State on March 31, then following that up with a huge victory at No. 19 California on Apr. 5.

The Huskies beat the Golden Bears 4-3 with freshman Sedona Gallagher pulling off the clinching point with a tie-breaker win on court five. The victory was just the fifth all-time against California and its first in Berkeley since 2005.

After a tough loss at No. 5 Stanford, the Huskies came back to Seattle and picked off another top team, defeating No. 13 USC 4-2 at home with junior Natsuho Arakawa recording the clinching point on court four. It was just the fourth time the Huskies beat the Trojans in 27 all-time matches. The victory also gave Washington its seventh Pac-12 victory, eclipsing the previous best program mark of six done twice before.

UW suffered a tough 4-1 loss to No. 10 UCLA on senior day but closed out the season with a dominating 4-1 win at No. 35 Washington State on April 20.

At the Pac-12 tournament, Washington cruised to a 4-0 victory over Arizona State in the first round highlighted by a big doubles victory by senior Stacey Fung and Zupancic over ASU’s No. 1-ranked doubles team. That win sent Washington to the tournament semifinals for the first time for a rematch against No. 9 UCLA. The Bruins jumped out to a 3-0 lead and held commanding leads on courts one and two.

But despite being down one set and trailing 5-1 in the second, Wong rallied to win the second in a tiebreaker, then cruised to a 5-7, 7-6 (9), 6-2 win over the Bruins’ No. 29th ranked player in the country. On court one, Fung rallied back to win her second set in a tiebreaker as well, then won 6-1 in the third set. But the Huskies couldn’t complete the comeback as the match came down to court three where UCLA won in three sets.

Despite the loss the Huskies were able to secure hosting the first and second rounds of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, doing so for the third time in program history and the first time since 2004. The Huskies failed to lose a point in the two matches, beating Army and No. 34 Princeton by identical 4-0 scores.

“Hosting was a huge accomplishment for us,” said Stephenson. “There is a lot of work that goes into hosting the first two rounds and we did a lot of good things to put ourselves in position to do that. We have had a lot of success at home over the years playing in front of our fans and to be able to stay home and play those matches against teams ranked behind you instead of traveling to a tough place was huge.”

But the team season came to an end in Los Angeles as Washington was unable to replicate its success against the Bruins in the Pac-12 Tournament and lost 4-0 in the NCAA Round of 16. Despite the loss, the Huskies reached the Round of 16 for the first time in 10 years and set the table for the future.

Washington would finish the season ranked No. 10 in the final ITA rankings—the third-highest finish in program history and highest since finishing ninth in 2004.

The Huskies sent a pair of representatives to the 2019 NCAA Individual Championships in Fung and Zupancic. Fung earned a spot in the singles competition—her third-straight appearance in the tournament—and teamed with Zupancic in the doubles tournament. Fung would pull off an upset to beat the No. 13 seed in the first round, but lost in the second round. The Huskies’ doubles team was also unable to pull off the upset

Zupancic and Kenadi Hance each had impressive success in doubles play. Hance, who played at No. 3 doubles through much of the year, won 26 doubles matches on the season, tied with five other Huskies just one shy of the program record set back in 2009-10. Zupancic recorded 25 and will sit tied for eighth-most in a season.

The freshman proved strong for the Huskies at the bottom of the lineup, especially in Pac-12 play. Zupancic went 12-3 in dual matches in the No. 6 spot including posting a 6-0 record in conference duals. Sedona Gallagher also went undefeated in the Pac-12 with a 9-0 record playing mainly at No. 5.

Junior transfer Natsuho Arakawa made a strong impact in her first season at UW, going 24-6 in singles matches including 15-4 in duals and 6-2 in Pac-12 matches while splitting time at No. 4 and No. 5.

At No. 3 singles, junior Katarina Kopcalic posted an impressive 22-10 record on the season while sophomore Vanessa Wong led the team with a 27-7 mark in singles competition at No. 2. Wong, who was 20-4 in dual matches on the season, won 13-straight matches during the middle of the season and held a 5-3 record against nationally-ranked opponents.

Washington’s seniors closed out their career strong with Fung and Hance combining to win 158 singles and 136 doubles matches in four seasons.

Hance posted a 17-8 singles record including a 12-2 mark in tournament play, adding 26 doubles wins.

Fung closed out her career with another impressive season, posting an 18-11 singles record, 21-11 doubles mark. She closes out her career with 91 singles victories—fifth-most in program history—and 67 doubles victories to place her in the top 10 and is one of just seven All-Americans in Washington women’s tennis history.

“Stacey and Kenadi were my first recruits and the first people I have coached here all four years,” said Stephenson. “They came in and really believed in the vision that I had for the team. The greatest thing about the two of them was their ability to stay the course. The first couple of years, we had a lot of ups and downs with some success and some not-so-great matches and results. But they believed in the vision, showed up every day and worked hard and were the leaders we needed them to be. They have set the foundation for the program and I’m really proud of what they were able to do.”

The Huskies’ don’t expect this success to be short-lived with much of their starting lineup returning in 2019-20 and a few good freshmen coming in. The successful season also netted Washington a chance to host the kick-off round of the ITA National Indoor Championships in January.

“I was really proud of how far we’ve come and the year we had,” said Stephenson. “Hopefully we can sustain that and take another step forward next year.”