- Stanford will have its second opportunity to qualify individuals for the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships, which begin Friday in Berkeley.
- With a new-look fall calendar that culminates with the NCAA Individual Championships from Nov. 19-24 in Waco, Texas, the two singles finalists and the doubles champion from the northwest region will qualify.
- Six Cardinal student-athletes will be in action at Cal’s Hellman Tennis Complex and Channing Tennis Courts.
- In singles, five from Stanford are seeded and will begin play on Saturday:
- No. 1 seed Connie Ma
- No. 5 seed Alexis Blokhina
- No. 6 seed Valerie Glozman
- No. 7 seed Valencia Xu
- No. 9 seed Chidimma Okpara
- Freshman Morgan Shaffer, who played on the same courts the Cal Fall Invite two weeks ago is in the qualifying draw and will play Gonzaga’s Safien Boulonois on Friday at 12:30 p.m.
- In singles, five from Stanford are seeded and will begin play on Saturday:
- Stanford will also field three doubles teams: Glozman/Ma, Blokhina/Xu and Okpara/Shaffer.
- Valerie Glozman and Connie Ma are the No. 3 seed and have a bye into Saturday’s Round of 32.
- Same goes for Alexis Blokhina and Valencia Xu, who are seeded fourth and will begin in the Round of 32 on Saturday at 9 a.m. against the winner of Catherine Gagnon/Zehra Suko (Washington) and Safien Boulonois/Rose Hayes (Gonzaga).
- Chidimma Okpara and Morgan Shaffer will kick things off on Friday at 9 a.m. against San Jose State’s Cheuk Ying Shek and Carla Urchoeguia.
- ITA Northwest Regionals will be taking place away from The Farm for the first time in a long time. Stanford has hosted the event for 16 consecutive years, but is currently unable due to the construction of the Arrillaga Tennis Center.
- In Stanford’s first action of the fall, Valerie Glozman qualified for the NCAA Singles Championship in November with a run to the quarterfinals at the ITA All-American Championships in Cary, N.C.
- Glozman, who received a wild card into the main draw, knocked off a trio of ranked opponents in No. 56 Alina Shcherbinina (Oklahoma), No. 53 Elizabeth Coleman (Duke) and No. 10 Sarah Hamner (South Carolina).
- The Cardinal boasts six ranked singles players this fall in Connie Ma (No. 4), Alexis Blokhina (No. 64), Valerie Glozman (No. 69), Katherine Hui (No. 76), Valencia Xu (No. 77) and India Houghton (No. 85). Those six players also form three nationally-ranked doubles teams. Ma and Blokhina are No. 19, Xu and Glozman are No. 54 and Houghton and Hui are No. 57.
- While no stranger to The Farm, Stanford begins its first season with Frankie Brennan as the program’s Peter and Helen Bing Director of Women's Tennis. The third-generation coach was hired to replace the legendary Lele Forood on Sept. 11. Forood announced she was stepping down following 24 seasons and 10 NCAA titles as head coach on Aug. 20.
- Brennan has been on staff at Stanford for 29 seasons and a part of 12 of Stanford’s record 20 NCAA championships. The Cardinal has gone 700-71 during his tenure.
- On Sept. 19, Brennan hired Stanford alumna Janice Shin as his assistant coach. A two-time NCAA team champion during her playing career from 2018-21, Shin was a key contributor on Stanford’s 2018 and 2019 NCAA title teams, going a perfect 8-0 in postseason matches and earning NCAA All-Tournament Team recognition at No. 5 singles both years.
- Stanford put together a 25-3 overall campaign in 2023-24, including an 8-1 mark in Pac-12 competition and a 13-1 mark at Taube Family Tennis Center. The program reached the NCAA quarterfinals for the 39th time in 42 NCAA Tournaments and won its third consecutive Pac-12 Tournament title.
