Alabama Athletics
Senior-laden team could mean big season for Alabama women's tennis
Ideally, it’s not supposed to happen this way. Granted, it can be great and pay off one season for a team, but in collegiate tennis coaches generally don’t try to slant their roster toward having a lot of seniors on the roster at the same time.
Even if they did, it would still be difficult to pull off in a sport that can have a lot of turnover.
So be it. Crimson Tide women’s coach Jenny Mainz isn’t going to turn down the opportunity of having a lineup loaded with experience this season.
“I’m really excited,” said the dean of all Crimson Tide coaches. “We have a veteran team. We’ve got four seniors.
“It doesn’t happen very often.”
It’s especially rare when there’s only seven players on the roster like this season’s Crimson Tide.
Making up the veteran majority are Alba Cortina Pau, Luca Fabian, Jacqueline Pelletier and Ann Selim. They hail from Spain, Hungary, South Carolina and Egypt, respectively.
They helped Alabama finish 18-12 overall, including six Southeastern Conference regular-season wins, last season. It led to the Crimson Tide’s first appearance in the NCAA Championships since 2015, with Mainz named the Wilson/ITA Southern Region Coach of the Year.
However, that team was led by Andie Daniell, the ITA Southern Region Senior Player of the Year. She went 24-9 in singles, including 11 wins against nationally ranked opponents, to finish 86-41 during her four-year collegiate career. She’s tied for No. 8 in all-time career singles wins with the Crimson Tide, and was twice named first-team All-SEC before going pro.
“Big shoes to fill,” Mainz said. “She was one of the most decorated players that’s ever played in our program. We’re really proud of the legacy that Andie left, on the court and off.”
As for how Alabama tries to fill that void, Mainz isn’t necessarily looking for one player to do it, or even attempt to do so. Not when strength in numbers might be this team’s biggest advantage.
“When you have four seniors it’s a council,” said Mainz, who is going into her 22 season leading the program. “It’s a committee and you’re working with all of them. I actually think some of the younger players are going to prove to be pretty helpful with leading.
“The chemistry is really good. The culture is really strong and healthy. We really worked on that the last couple of years. We kind of just got a little bit better, and better and better. I’m really excited to see what this veteran group can do this year.”
Daniell wasn’t the only player who finished with a national singles ranking in 2018-19, she was joined by Pou and now-junior Moka Ito of Japan.
Pau primarily played in the No. 3 slot last year, going 9-5, but she and Fabian tied for a team-best 18-13 mark in doubles, including a team-high 13 wins in dual match competition.
The leadership will start with her.
“Alba Cortina Pou has been really good, just consistent with her play, her training, her personality,” Mainz said. “Jacqueline Pelletier, she’s from South Carolina, real even-keeled, fighter on the court. Just makes really good decisions.
“They work together really well. The complement each other. They delegate.”
Pelletier also spent a good part of last season playing No. 3 singles.
Meanwhile, Ito finished her first season at Alabama after transferring from Western Kentucky (where she was the program’s first Conference USA Freshman of the Year and just the fifth player to earn first team all-conference honors in singles) with 14 dual-match wins, and 13 in doubles.
She was at No. 2 singles, and on the Crimson Tide’s top doubles team.
“She’s good,” Mainz said. “She doesn’t know how good she is.”
In singles, Fabian played primarily in the No. 5 spot while posting a 12-6 record, and 19-12 overall. Selim was usually in the No. 6 slot, going 8-4 in that position.
Although it’s natural for players to move up in the lineup each year, they may not have to as Alabama landed two freshmen who could step in and contribute.
At the Institut Obert de Catalunya and Institut Jaoquim Blume in Barcelona, Spain, Ares Teixido was ranked as high as No. 37 nationally and earned a career-best No. 270 junior ranking from the International Tennis Federation.
She was a semifinalist in singles, while winning the doubles title in the ITF G5 Tarragona in April, plus won the doubles title in the Junior Catalan Championship.
“We are very excited to have Ares join our program,” assistant coach Jonatan Berhane said in a statement when Alabama announced her signing in late May. “She has great character and thrives on competition, which is a key component to be successful in our league. She has competed nationally and internationally and has done very well. She still has the appetite and love for tennis and wants to continue to grow as a player. She will make an immediate impact on our team.”
Isabella Harvison also lived in Barcelona during her high school years and won the singles title at the Campeonato de Catalunya in March. Before moving to Spain, she won both the singles and doubles in the U-12 Southern California regionals and sectionals, and was ranked No. 1 in doubles and No. 5 in singles in Southern California.
“She’s very good,” Mainz said. “Even as an incoming freshman she’s certainly going to make a profound impact playing in the top part of the lineup.”
“She’s got a big game, a lot of potential. A lot of experience.”
Mainz knows something about experience. Over the years she’s guided the Crimson Tide to the NCAA Championships 12 times, with 25 singles players and 18 doubles teams ranked in the final Intercollegiate Tennis Association polls.
Alabama’s first fall tournament will be on Sept. 27-29 at the Rice Invitational in Houston. The Crimson Tide has nine teams from the 2019 NCAA Tournament field on its dual-match schedule in the spring with Alabama State, Georgia, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and LSU.
Additionally, for the first time since 2005, Alabama will host the SEC Women’s Tennis Championships on April 15-19. It happens about as often as a team having four seniors on the roster.
