Tucson’s Tanvi Narendran helps UA women’s tennis notch signature win | Michael Lev

Freshman Zoya Chulak would be the first to rally. Down a set on Court 6, Chulak took the next two. The dual match between the UA and ASU was tied.

It would come down to Court 5, where junior Tanvi Narendran faced a similar deficit and her own tennis demons.

She lost the first set to Karin Altori 6-2. Narendran won the second 6-4.

Altori led the third set 5-4, 40-15. College tennis has no ads, so this was it: Narendran had to survive three consecutive match points to avoid defeat.

“It wasn’t going so well for us in the beginning, at least on my side of things,” Narendran said. “The back two courts, Zoya and I, we were losing.

“But then, that’s the beauty about tennis: It’s not time-dependent. You can always come back. So we were just working through our matches, trying to figure it out.”

Narendran figured it out. She won three straight points to square the set at 5-5. She broke Altori to go up 6-5. With match point on Narendran’s racket, Altori hit a return beyond the baseline.

That’s when the celebration began.

Narendran dropped her racket and skipped over to her elated teammates. They wrapped their arms around one another’s shoulders and formed a circle. They danced and sang.

“Olé, olé, olé, olé! Olé! Olé!”

This was a very big deal. Arizona had lost nine consecutive times against ASU. The Wildcats hadn’t beaten the Sun Devils since 2014.

“My heart was racing,” UA coach Ryan Stotland said. “I took a second to see the team dancing and having a good time.

“It was a great moment to see your team work so hard and accomplish something they’ve always wanted to do.”

It was a magical Saturday afternoon at the LaNelle Robson Tennis Center. And it was a long time coming.

The value of culture

When Stotland was hired as the UA women’s tennis coach in June 2018, the Wildcats were coming off a 9-16 season. They had gone 0-10 in the Pac-12. They were in the midst of an NCAA Tournament drought — four years and counting.

Stotland knew what it would take to turn the program around. He’d been here and done that.

Stotland was an assistant coach at Arizona during more prosperous times. The Wildcats made two NCAA Tournament appearances during his four seasons, 2009-12.

When he first arrived in Tucson after starting his coaching career at New Mexico, his alma mater, Stotland remembered thinking: “This school deserves to be great.”

“It’s really the pride. It’s the city. The ‘A’ means a lot to everybody,” Stotland said.

The Wildcats’ slogan, “Bear Down,” mirrored Stotland’s motto: “Head, heart, hustle.”

Coming off a highly successful stint as the head coach at Fresno State, Stotland seemed like the perfect person to return UA women’s tennis to prominence. But program-building — especially in the pre-portal days — typically takes time.

The Wildcats’ winning percentage has improved incrementally. They went 35-31 in Stotland’s first three seasons (.530), 50-37 in the next three (.575) — culminating, last spring, with Arizona’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2014.

The 31st-ranked Wildcats are 16-7 (.696) heading into their final two home matches of the season: vs. No. 27 Baylor on Friday and No. 15 Texas Tech on Sunday, when Arizona will honor seniors Midori Castillo-Meza and Belen Nevenhoven.

Like close friend Clancy Shields, head coach of the 11th-ranked UA men’s tennis team, Stotland believes strongly in the value of culture. It’s especially important in sports such as tennis and golf, where players mostly compete as individuals as youths and teenagers.

“Culture just means that you’re playing for more than yourself,” he said. “We have a big saying in our locker room: ‘Everything you do affects everyone in this room.’ ... I just want to make sure that they understand that.”

Stotland described Castillo-Meza and Nevenhoven as “culture kids.” They’re about to complete their fourth seasons with the program — a testament to what Stotland has built.

He’s done it without the resources a handful of the top programs have. Baylor has multimillion-dollar outdoor and indoor facilities and will host the Division I men’s and women’s team championships in May. Oklahoma State has a donor-funded outdoor/indoor facility with a price tag of almost $20 million.

While Stotland has recruited well — including classes ranked in the top 22 nationally from 2021-23 — he’s been even better at getting the most out of his players. The highest-ranked Wildcat is sophomore transfer Josie Usereau, who’s No. 50 in the ITA’s singles rankings. No other UA player is in the top 125.

If the Wildcats see themselves as underdogs, it might help them combat Stotland’s biggest concern coming off an emotional win: complacency. Although in good position to make the NCAA Tournament for a second straight season, Arizona isn’t a shoo-in just yet.

“We’ve done some cool things, but we can’t be satisfied,” Stotland said. “We want to set the tone for the future of where we can be, how high we can go. We want to be able to win a conference title, which I don’t think we ever have.”

It’s true: The next conference championship for UA women’s tennis will be its first.

Risk, reward

Arizona’s roster features players from all over the continent, including Mexico (Castillo-Meza) and Canada (Chulak, Usereau and two others).

The player who clinched the epic victory over ASU graduated from University High School in Tucson.

Attending Arizona wasn’t necessarily Narendran’s plan. It turned out to be a win-win.

“I wanted to be a part of a really great tennis program with good academics. And it just so happened that my hometown school had all of that,” Narendran said. “I love representing Tucson. I’ve been here 21 years now, so it’s really special to me.”

Being a Tucson kid made the triumph over the Sun Devils that much sweeter. It was a moment she’d dreamt of, and she rose to it. It wasn’t always that way.

“That’s the position everybody wants to be in. I’ve also always been afraid of that position, because there’s a lot of pressure on you if you lose,” Narendran said. “I’ve been there.”

Narendran remembers what it felt like to be on the losing end of a deciding match against Illinois in the Blue Grey Tennis Classic during her freshman year (which she finished with a 15-8 record). She didn’t want to experience that again. So she forced herself out of her comfort zone.

Narendran considers herself a “risk-averse individual.” Her mentality is usually “don’t miss, let them earn it.”

“But ... a lot of times at this level, they do earn it and they do take it,” Narendran said. “So I’ve been working a lot on making the first move.

“I’m trying to win it rather than (playing) not to lose. That was the mindset I had. I was like, ‘I’m down match points. I’m playing on house money now. ... I’m gonna let it be on my racket. I’m gonna play the right way.’ If I do that and I still lose, then so be it. But I’d rather have it go down that way than regret not taking the chances that I had.

“In sport, a lot of times, (it’s) no guts, no glory. You do have to go out and take those risks. I still don’t take crazy risks. But I’ve worked a lot on taking calculated risks.”

Forgive Narendran for getting in her own head a bit. She’s a neuroscience major with minors in Spanish and pre-law. She’s set to graduate in three years and plans to get a master’s in finance while completing her final year of eligibility. Then it’s on to law school, with the goal of becoming an intellectual-property lawyer with a focus on AI regulation.

Tennis-wise, Narendran was something of a late bloomer. Between 2019 and ’22, her national recruiting ranking soared from 182 to 30.

“I lost all the time in the 12s, the 14s,” she said. “Tennis wasn’t my favorite thing. But I stuck with it.”

She found her happy place at Arizona, where it’s all about one thing: the team.

“I definitely have put a lot of pressure on myself, and that’s something that I didn’t really come to terms with until college,” Narendran said. “It’s really easy to correlate your self-esteem with how you’re doing. So when I lost ... I wouldn’t feel great about myself.

“College is what’s really helped me with that, because it’s a team sport. I’m out here because I enjoy it. It doesn’t matter if I win or lose. All I can do is do my best, control the controllables. ... I’m gaining a great experience, no matter what happens results-wise.”

But it sure is nice when the results go your way.