By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
It would have been one of the biggest Cinderella stories ever in sports…. But it was still pretty awesome.
Anastasiia Lopata was the No. 4 player on the University of Georgia’s national runner-up team and, heading into the NCAA women’s singles championships, was the No. 9 alternate to get into the individual tournament. That means, “Nas” as she is nicknamed, wasn’t in the original 64 players in the field and needed nine players – NINE PLAYERS – to pull out of the tournament for her to even get in the event, which is not something that happens often at all. However, incredibly, nine players did pull out of the singles field and Lopata, with an Intercollegiate Tennis Association singles ranking of No. 70, was able to get into the field, the day after Georgia lost the NCAA team championship match late the night before. Then, six days after she found herself in the singles tournament, she, absolutely incredibly, found herself in the championship match.
This fairy tale run to the championship match was like pro golfer John Daly when he won the 1991 PGA Championship, also getting into the field as the No. 9 alternate. It also is similar to the story of Emma Raducanu, who won the 2021 U.S. Open after getting into the main draw field through the qualifying rounds.
Colette Lewis of ZooTennis, the respected reporter of grass roots competitive tennis, called Lopata’s run “inconceivable” as Georgia’s No. 4 player beat en route to the final the No. 1 players from Cal (Valentina Ivanov), North Carolina (No. 5 Fiona Crawley), Old Dominion (Sofia Johnson), Vanderbilt (No. 9 Celia-Belle Mohr) and NC State (No. 2 Amelia Rajecki)
Lopata’s Cinderella story had another angle to it as she hails from war-torn Kiev, Ukraine and her family has had to endure the hardships of the Russian invasion, as documented here: https://www.dawgnation.com/other-sports/anastasiia-lopata/WZOGLPQKP5BZVIKTMFM5HOLQUY/
Unfortunately for Lopata, the clock struck midnight in the third-set of the NCAA title match against Alexa Noel of the University of Miami as Lopata’s run ended in a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 loss.
While Lopata’s run didn’t end with a win like Daly or Raducanu, her NCAA singles runner-up plaque still represents something extremely special.
