So basically there were 3 teams on the one side of the bracket who were virtually indistinguishable (A&M, UNC, UGA) and better than everyone on the other side of the bracket. That stinks.
UNC Women’s Tennis 2025-2026
- Thread starter 3397char
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Yes, questionable seeding on both men’s and women’s side. This was egregious.
i'm not sure it was a health issue. she didn't play with a brace on her wrist in the A&M match. i think she just lost confidence in her game during the last few weeks. bad time for that to happen. my theory is that the loss to state in the acc semis when she had multiple match points really had an impact on her.
Auburn was very good, but A&M just played better in the finals. very surprising that they won the doubles point when they had lost it fairly handily against both UNC and UGA.
My take is that she was injured when the slump began, probably close to 100% by this past week-end, but ran into the best player in the country in her last match.
I watched what Gruskin showed and what I saw on key moments was mostly Reece making normally winning shots that Perez tracked down and put past her. I am not saying Brantmeier played to her top potential, but Perez looked like the better player overall regardless.
It is important to remember that Brantmeier was never in the top 5 of UTR this season. On paper she was predicted to lose this match. Her NCAA individual title is a little misleading because many of the ringers did not play in the fall. Her aTm opponent Perez also missed the fall, but was undefeated in the spring.
Of the top 10 players listed here only 3 participated in the fall NCAAs. And that also means that the other 7 did not have the slate of fall matches that the ITA uses to rank players through the spring. If you do not play in the fall you will get a huge handicap on you ITA ranking, even by year's end. Perez got to the top only because she was undefeated.
My main point here is that I don't think there is a world where we should have just expected Brantmeier to win that last match on Court 1. That match was a tossup at best, more likely she was a bit of an underdog. While she did lose convincingly, at the end of the day that does not really matter. It is one point no matter the number of games and sets won. This was a team loss across all 6 courts. there were actually Tar Heels at other spots who lost to slightly lower ranked opponents.
As for her other three losses on the year, that is a different story. Two of them were to significantly lesser opponents. Sometimes you just have a bad day, but perhaps the injury explanation is more applicable here. Especially since some of the wins in this period also looked like a bit of a struggle.
most likely we will never know the full story. if she was having a left wrist issue for much of the spring (only assuming that b/c of the brace that she was wearing) then she was playing at a much higher level while "injured" than she did since the acc tournament.
regardless of what utr says, brantmeier is a top 5 player in the nation. i was at the A&M match and the michigan matches. even though both of her opponents are top 10 ranked players, they did not do anything special at all. they didn't have to. brantmeier just self-destructed with errors.
perez is a good counterpuncher and obviously is playing with a lot of confidence given her undefeated spring. however, a confident braintmeier playing well has enough fire power to win that match. just like when braintmeier played lopata of uga back in february in chapel hill. the score was close but if you watched the match you could tell that brantmeier was clearly the stronger player.
if the michigan match never happened then you can make the argument that perez is the #1 player in the nation and was too good. however, the michigan match did happen and reese looked really bad in both matches.
Sounds strategically to me. Those seven players' body wise were well rested without any nagging injuries that can occur in the fall. Also, the way the seeding was done makes you wonder if it was by design to have UNC, A&M, and UGA be placed on the same side of the bracket. Sine it was clearly evident that these three teams were the toughest ones.
I am pretty sure they were all playing on the pro circuit but I could be wrong about 1 or two of 'em. Much like Frey did at UNC.
again, i don't think it was clearly evident that the 3 best teams were on the same side of the bracket. auburn was very good and i thought they were the favorite to win in the final. A&M just played better than them yesterday.
ohio state (on the other side of the bracket) was also very good. they beat A&M and UNC, and narrowly lost to UGA during the season. there was no conspiracy to screw over unc.
Final player rankings for UNC players:
Rising Sr Zampardo and & So Frey may have been worthy of a ranking if they had played the entire year. They both return along with Jr Hamilton, Sr Rabman, & Jr doubles specialist Maltby. Jr Hill was a part-time starter prior to the arrival of Zampardo; she also returns.
UNC carried 11 on the roster this year, 1 above the 10 roster limit, which means at least one current player qualifies as a roster exception, remaining a walk-on through their eligibility.
So assuming we can carry 11 next year and we have two spots opening, that leaves room for two recruits. But we have 4 coming in:
But I think it is highly unlikely we will see UNC taking players in the transfer portal, which is well underway right now.
The roster for the 2027 season will be equally interesting. Assuming the 5 to play 5 rule goes into effect, I don't believe we will have any players exhaust their eligibility, because none of our seniors next year used a redshirt year that would eliminate a 5th year for them. We currently have no 2027 commits and it may need to stay that way.
- 2 Brantmeier
- 7 Kajuru
- 43 Evans
Rising Sr Zampardo and & So Frey may have been worthy of a ranking if they had played the entire year. They both return along with Jr Hamilton, Sr Rabman, & Jr doubles specialist Maltby. Jr Hill was a part-time starter prior to the arrival of Zampardo; she also returns.
UNC carried 11 on the roster this year, 1 above the 10 roster limit, which means at least one current player qualifies as a roster exception, remaining a walk-on through their eligibility.
So assuming we can carry 11 next year and we have two spots opening, that leaves room for two recruits. But we have 4 coming in:
- #1 Alexis Nguyen
- #4 Avery Nguyen
- #25 Ishika Ashar
- #31 Aya Manning
But I think it is highly unlikely we will see UNC taking players in the transfer portal, which is well underway right now.
The roster for the 2027 season will be equally interesting. Assuming the 5 to play 5 rule goes into effect, I don't believe we will have any players exhaust their eligibility, because none of our seniors next year used a redshirt year that would eliminate a 5th year for them. We currently have no 2027 commits and it may need to stay that way.
sure seems like it. Tennis is/was an equivalency sport, meaning a single scholarship could be divided among multiple players. we had 8 total to give out per year, So I assumed that most of the roster was at least on a partial scholarship. Not sure how that played into the walk-ons grandfathered in? It is all as clear as mud.
Great find!
She is not listed as committed on tennisrecruiting.net:
But she sure is on her Insta: