Amazing match for Mary.

So rewarding to watch. I love how just keeps getting a little better. Every time her opponent got in a rhythm, she gave her a different look.

For the top professional level - she still gives a few too many attackable balls that sit up in the middle of the court. I'm confident she will adjust as she plays more players that consistently crack winners off those balls.

Two more matches, Mary. Let's go!!

My takeaways from the match:
- Mary's ground strokes are improved since last we saw her live in May. She had a total of 10 net points the whole match and struggled to find her way in against the other girls' booming groundstrokes, but stuck with it and adapted.
- Mary's serve is not flashy, and she won't ace a ton but it will win her free pints off errors or setting herself up for the next shot. (not new news but worth noting)
- She is adjusting very well to playing out there by herself. She's spoken on it but it's a whole different game playing for a team than it is being out there by yourself. (She won't have any issue adjusting back to team mentality)
- if she is NIL "sponsored" by Asics then she is being noticed by the world.
- In what should be her 1st day of classes of her senior year she is winning at the US Open. Bit a bad way to start tryout senior year!

Next up for Mary is 24 year old Marina Bassols Ribera of Spain who is ranked #115.

bigtimeag1977 said:

---

Stanford coach just resigned. Certainly Mark wouldn't leave us to go be a Cardinal.

---

how about we steal their top players

I mean, if A&M administration doesn't start taking tennis seriously, why not? Easy to recruit to, top notch facilities. I mean, Mitchell needs a seriously uplift, but we're renovating other facilities first that just got renovations 2-3 years ago…. Alberts better get his ducks in a row with tennis!

I am the biggest mark fan and if my previous comment had any suggestion otherwise it's not what i intended. ( i know it wasn't your comment but just knocking out both replies in 1 post) However after some digging i found some good info…Mark makes just shy of $250,000 per public record, and that's before he won a national championship. that puts him 2nd in the SEC only behind UF's Thornqvist. it's also better than Brian Kalbas was making at unc through 2023. Joffre makes $250,000 after both his recent national championships. So if Mark was making ~$250,000 before he won a national championship then he is in the upper echelon of pay. Mark also gets paid better than Steve Denton, who makes around $215,000

Really weird time in college athletics because of NIL and the millions and millions more per year that an Athletic Department has to come up with starting now to pay all these legal settlements. And even more so in non-revenue sports where the entire model may change and schools could eliminate sports totally to pay these new costs put upon them. It sucks but it is a totally different world now than at any time in the past.

Anchorhold said:

---

Carson won this morning. 6-4 6-3.
Lulu won doubles last night. 6-0, 6-1.
Mia won yesterday. 6-2, 7-6(5).

---

Amazing. And to think:

Carson played #2
Mia played #4
Lulu played #5

#1 Mary is playing second round of US Open qualification draw.

Sorry - I can't stop celebrating our 2024 team. Just crazy good.