Months after coming up one match short of a national title, NC State women’s tennis hit the courts once more as the Wolfpack hosted the Fall Ranked Spotlight.
As a national powerhouse for women’s tennis, NC State showed out in Raleigh and Cary, North Carolina, over the weekend. The Wolfpack won 11 ranked singles matches and three ranked doubles matches. As the first step in its journey back to a national championship, NC State got its first taste of action against some of the best competition in the country.
“The biggest thing is, even though our players do play a lot in the summer, [this competition] is to see where we are as a team,” said head coach Simon Earnshaw. “We’ve obviously got a lot of work to do. We’ve lost some fairly tough competitors, and we’re young.”
While the Wolfpack suffered the unsurprising departures of two of its top players from last season, Alana Smith and Diana Shnaider, Earnshaw engineered an impressive freshman class to bolster the ranks of his returning players — almost all of which are seniors.
One of those seniors, No. 10 Amelia Rajecki, stole the show in the singles tournament at Cary Tennis Park. After breaking the program’s record for the most single-season singles wins and blazing her way to the semifinal round of the NCAA Singles Championships, Rajecki doubled down on her singles prowess by winning the A-1 draw of the Fall Ranked Spotlight.
“NCAA’s gave me a little taster of who I could be and kind of, the potential that I had which is really nice,” Rajecki said. “This tournament is definitely very physical, especially in singles. … It’s challenging, which I really like, but this season, I’m definitely just interested to play a lot of high level tennis and kind of see how far I can push myself.”
Rajecki defended her No. 10 national ranking against an array of other ranked competitors, only losing one set over her five-match road. Her fellow senior, No. 72 Abigail Rencheli, also competed in the A-1 draw, winning two matches before falling to Ohio State’s Irina Cantos Siemers in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
Meanwhile, seniors No. 110 Sophie Abrams and Gina Dittmann won three combined matches in the A-2 draw. Sophomore Anna Zyryanova also won three matches in the consolation draw of the A-2 competition.
Many of the Wolfpack’s freshmen got their first taste of college tennis Thursday, Sept. 21 at NC State’s home courts in the doubles competition. Getting used to the collegiate game is a challenge in and of itself, not to mention rising to Earnshaw’s and NC State’s sky-high expectations.
“It’s a learning process for them,” Earnshaw said. “They’re definitely very, very capable, so it’s not a steep learning curve. They’ve just got to understand that when expectations and goals or standards are higher that you’re gonna have to hold yourself to a higher standard.”
The red-and-white’s freshman class was dubbed the No. 6 class in the country over the summer for good reason. Freshmen Maddy Zampardo, Gabriella Broadfoot and Reya Lee Coe all had extensive experience and accolades at the junior level, making them natural fits for NC State’s next generation of players.
Earnshaw also added freshman Kristina Paskauskas in August to double down on his biggest and most impressive freshman class in years.
However, getting four new freshmen acclimated to NC State tennis is just as much of a lesson for the fresh faces as it is for the Pack’s experienced group of seniors.
“For the seniors, it’s definitely kind of a learning experience for us,” Rajecki said. “Every year you have a new team, and you kind of pass the baton on trying to teach the freshies the rules of how we play. But definitely four is a lot. I’ve never, never heard of that many freshmen. It’s nice to kind of see them learning and kind of seeing what you’ve told them, putting that into play.”
Rajecki has taken Zampardo under her wing as her anticipated doubles partner for the season. The pair is already ranked No. 43 in the country and won two out of three of their matches over the weekend.
Similar to Rajecki and Zampardo, Rencheli’s joined forces with Broadfoot in doubles, and the pair also won two matches over the weekend.
As this freshman class takes its first steps as the future of NC State women’s tennis, Earnshaw’s expecting big things out of his squad, no matter their experience.
“Hopefully, as a group we can sort of collectively step up again,” Earnshaw said. “We definitely have a lot of pieces this year, that’s for sure. We’ve never had a roster that was as big as this.”
Once again, the Wolfpack has a national championship in its crosshairs. After finally getting its long-sought-after ACC Championship title in April, it’s the only thing left on NC State’s to-do list.
With the likes of experienced seniors like Rajecki leading the charge and a bevy of promising freshmen following behind, Earnshaw and the Pack will undoubtedly be gunning for another historic season come 2024.
