The Ohio State Buckeyes have one of the stronger tennis programs in the country right now. That elusive National Championship hasn’t come yet, but the Buckeyes have been tantalizingly close in the past five years.
The men’s program, led by rising now-professional J.J. Wolf, were the No. 1 team for most of last year before losing in the “Elite Eight.” (I use the air quotes because officially the NCAA only uses terms like Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, and Final Four for the basketball tournaments.) Before that, the program reached the National Championship in 2018 and the “Final Four” in 2017, along with other strong results this decade.
What many fans might have missed, though, is that the women’s tennis program has also been very strong this decade. Led by Francesca Di Lorenzo, the 2017 women’s team also reached the “Final Four,” losing in an incredibly tight third-set tiebreak in the final match to Stanford.
It’s been a bit of a rough two years for the women’s program since then; they missed the NCAA tournament entirely in 2018, and lost a tight match in the first round last year.
This year, though, the program finally looks to be headed back to its previous heights. Led by Redshirt Junior Shiori Fukuda, this year’s Buckeye squad is full of strong players up and down the lineup. Two other Buckeyes are nationally ranked so far–Irina Cantos Siemers and Kolie Allen. Danielle Wolf, J.J.’s sister, has also been a strong player who has improved every year, and in her Redshirt Senior year she also looks like a national contender, having just dominated nationally ranked Ayumi Miyamoto in her most recent match (a 6-2 6-1 victory).
The Buckeyes opened the season with two wins at the ITA Kick-Off event in Stillwater, Oklahoma, knocking off No. 24 Wake Forest and No. 10 Oklahoma State in the process. Because of that, the Buckeyes jumped from their spot at No. 25 in the ITA rankings all the way to No. 12. The men, meanwhile, sit at No. 6, as they start the meat of their schedule next week.
It’s still early in the season, but Ohio State is well on its way to being a tennis powerhouse again–on both the men’s and women’s sides of the court.