PAC-12 SINGLES PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Alexandra Yepifanova, Stanford
PAC-12 FRESHMAN/NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR: Fangran Tian, UCLA
PAC-12 DOUBLES TEAM OF THE YEAR: Kimmi Hance/Elise Wagle, UCLA
PAC-12 COACH OF THE YEAR: Lele Forood, Stanford
SAN FRANCISCO -
The Pac-12 announced today postseason honors and all-conference teams for the 2023 women's tennis season, as determined by a polling of the league's coaches. Stanford's
Alexandra Yepifanova
was voted Pac-12 Singles Player of the Year, UCLA's
Fangran Tian
was tabbed Pac-12 Freshman/Newcomer of the Year, UCLA's
Kimmi Hance
and
Elise Wagle
earned Pac-12 Doubles Team of the Year accolades and Stanford's head coach
Lele Forood
was selected by her peers as Pac-12 Coach of the Year.
PAC-12 SINGLES PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Alexandra Yepifanova, So., Stanford (Hollywood, Fla.)
Currently on a 16-match win streak, Yepifanova has gone 32-5 overall in singles play with a 19-1 mark in dual matches. She went undefeated against every Pac-12 opponent she faced in both fall tournaments and spring dual matches, winning the ITA Northwest Regionals singles championship in the fall. Yepifanova is undefeated
at the top spot at 9-0, checking in at 5-1 at No. 2 and 6-0 at No. 3, and leads the team with an 11-2 record against ranked opponents. She is the first from Stanford to boast an unbeaten record mark at the No. 1 spot in singles since at least 2004. In her current 16-match win streak, 13 of those wins have been in straight sets. She is Stanford's 17th Pac-12 Singles Player of the Year and first since Michaela Gordon in 2019.
PAC-12 FRESHMAN/NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR: Fangran Tian, Fr., UCLA (Beijing,
China)
The second-highest ITA-ranked singles player in the conference (14th), Tian is Bruins' winningest singles player this season, going 23-5 overall, 15-0 in dual matches and a perfect 9-0 in Conference. She was 14-9 in doubles and 12-5 in doubles in duals. Against nationally-ranked opponents, Tian went a team-best 11-4, earning her a spot in the ITAs top 30 five weeks in a row and the top 100 for nine of the season's 10 weeks. She was one of 64 players selected for the NCAA Singles Championship and is the ninth Bruin to receive the Freshman/Newcomer of the Year award and the first since Elysia Bolton in 2019.
PAC-12 DOUBLES TEAM OF THE YEAR: Kimmi Hance, So., (Torrance, Calif.) & Elise Wagle, So., (Niskayuna, N.Y.), UCLA
Ranked No. 7 nationally, Hance and Wagle are the seventh Bruin pair to be named Pac-12 Doubles Team of the Year. The duo went a Bruin best 21-5 overall this season with a 14-3 dual mark and played all their matches at the top spot. The pair was 9-2 against nationally-ranked opponents and were the Conference's automatic qualifier for the NCAA Doubles Championship.
PAC-12 COACH OF THE YEAR: Lele Forood, Stanford
Now a seven-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Forood collected her first such honor since 2018 after leading the Cardinal to its XX regular-season Pac-12 title with an unbeaten 10-0 Conference mark and its fifth Pac-12 Tournament title in six tries. Stanford boasts the nation's longest win streak at 18 matches in a row. With a 21-2 overall record, the Cardinal's only losses this season came back in February at ITA Indoor Nationals. Stanford has defeated five top-25 ranked opponents this season and earned its first perfect Pac-12 record since 2019.
2023 PAC-12 WOMEN'S TENNIS ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS
FIRST TEAM
Name
|
School
|
Year
|
Hometown
|
Jessica Alsola
|
California
|
So.
|
Fresno, Calif.
|
Angelica Blake
|
Stanford
|
Sr.
|
Boca Raton, Fla.
|
Reece Carter
|
Arizona
|
Fr.
|
Victoria, B.C.
|
Eryn Cayetano
|
USC
|
Sr.
|
Long Beach, Calif.
|
Chelsea Fontenel
|
Arizona State
|
Fr.
|
Basel, Switzerland
|
Haley Giavara
|
California
|
Sr.
|
San Diego, Calif.
|
Connie Ma
|
Stanford
|
So.
|
Dublin, Calif.
|
Giulia Morlet
|
Arizona State
|
Jr.
|
Paris, France
|
Hikaru Sato
|
Washington
|
Sr.
|
Tokyo, Japan
|
Madison Sieg
|
USC
|
Fr.
|
Greenwich, Conn.
|
Fangran Tian
|
UCLA
|
Fr.
|
Beijing, China
|
Alexadra Yepifanova
|
Stanford
|
So.
|
Hollywood, Fla.
|
SECOND TEAM
Name
|
School
|
Year
|
Hometown
|
Eva Alvarez Sande
|
Washington State
|
Fr.
|
Coruna, Galicia, Spain
|
Marianna Argyrokastriti
|
Arizona State
|
Jr.
|
Athens, Greece
|
Antonia Balzert
|
Colorado
|
Sr.
|
Dusseldorf, Germany
|
Emma Charney
|
USC
|
Fr.
|
Mount Pleasant, S.C.
|
Sara Choy
|
Stanford
|
Gr.
|
Palo Alto, Calif.
|
Snow Han
|
USC
|
R-So.
|
Wuhan, China
|
Kimmi Hance
|
UCLA
|
So.
|
Torrance, Calif.
|
Erika Matsuda
|
Washington
|
Fr.
|
Yokohama, Japan
|
Astrid Olsen
|
Washington
|
Jr.
|
Hagan, Norway
|
Domenika Turkovic
|
Arizona State
|
Gr.
|
Zagreb, Croatia
|
Katja Wiersholm
|
California
|
So.
|
Kirkland, Wash.
|
Valencia Xu
|
Stanford
|
So.
|
Livingston, N.J.
|
HONORABLE MENTION (received at least one vote):
Kaila Barksdale, UTAH; Naomi Cheong, USC; Aya El Sayed, COLO; Sedona Gallagher, ASU; Jennifer Kerr, WASH; Marcela Lopez, UTAH; Uxia Martinez Moral, ORE; Berta Passola Folch, CAL; Grace Piper, USC; Madison Tattini, UTAH; Betina Tokac, COLO; Hannah Viller Moeller, CAL; Elise Wagle, UCLA; Salma Ziouti, ARIZ.