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Women’s Tennis Prepares for Conference Matches Through Division II Competition
The women’s tennis team has been preparing for the upcoming conference season by competing against Division II schools.
River Schiff Senior Staff Writer Tomorrow, the women’s tennis team will play DePauw University in their first North Coast Athletic Conference matchup of the season. The team has been preparing for conference play in an unusual way: instead of competing against Oberlin’s peers at Division III schools, Head Coach Constantine Ananiadis purposefully scheduled Division II matches. “If you want to beat the best, you gotta play the best,” Ananiadis wrote in an email to the Review. The team currently has a 3–6 record, but Ananiadis said this is due to playing Division II matches.
“We have a good team this year with lots of potential and we could easily be 9–0 if I had scheduled easy non-conference teams,” Ananiadis wrote. “But how does that prepare us for DePauw, Kenyon, and Denison? They’d look like three-headed monsters if we didn’t play these tough matches in February and early March to prepare us.” Third-year women’s tennis player Dina Nouaime believes that playing schools at the Division II level has helped her teammates prepare to face any challenges. “A lot of the teams in Division II are more vigorous in terms of competition, play, and mindset,” Nouaime said. “In Division II, there’s different rules, too — competition being seven
points as opposed to nine, and doubles only counting as one point ... We have to come out more explosive to secure that initial point.” After the shock of Division II competition, the desire to win will fuel the team in future competitions. “We’re all feeling motivated against the teams we have these sort of rivalries with,” Nouaime said. “What we faced so far has really prepared us and hardened our mentality.” Fourth-year women’s tennis captain Francesca Kern says she believes there isn’t that big of a gap in between Division II and Division III team abilities. “Oberlin is a lot better than a fair number of Division II teams,” Kern said. “We chose to play a lot of com-
Courtesy of GoYeo
petitive teams, which was really good because we have a high level of ability on our team all around. We competed really well, which only prepares us for our season ahead.” Kern is eager to prove what the Yeowomen can do. “I’m really excited for the season because I believe we have the best team that I’ve experienced during my time at Oberlin,” she said. “Especially considering our inability to compete in previous years due to COVID, I’m just grateful for the opportunity to play and compete with a high likelihood of success for me, personally, and for the team as a whole. I’m really looking forward to spending the rest of the season bonding with my teammates before I have to graduate.”
Brittney Griner Arrested in Russia, WNBA Needs to Protect its Players
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considered to be college basketball’s player of the year. After her impressive college career, she went on to the WNBA and had huge success. “She then won a WNBA championship in 2014 and was selected as one of the best 25 players in league history in 2021,” NYMag wrote. “She has two Olympic gold medals to her name. In the gold-medal game against Japan in Tokyo last summer, she dominated, scoring 30 points to clinch an easy victory.” Griner isn’t the only WNBA player who has traveled to Russia to augment her salary. In 2015, WNBA player Diana Taurasi was paid $1.5 million by UMMC Ekaterinburg so that she could sit out the WNBA season and be well-rested for the Russian season. Taurasi says that it felt “backwards” having to “go to a ‘communist’ country to get paid like capitalists.”
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This is Griner’s seventh season in Russia, which is probably the only leverage she has in the country right now. The billionaire owner of UMMC Ekaterinburg, Iskander Makhmudov, is reportedly close to Putin, which could help her case. In addition, throughout her remarkable career with the Ekaterinburg team — which she has played for since 2014 — Griner has helped the club win four EuroLeague Women’s championships. However, if she can be classified as a ‘hostage,’ Griner will join more than 50 American citizens who are currently held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas. Although her arrest is believed to have happened in February, news of Griner’s predicament didn’t arrive in the U.S. until March 5, when Russia revealed that they were holding her. Soon after, Griner’s wife posted about the situation on Instagram.
“There are no words to express this pain,” she wrote. “I’m hurting, we’re hurting.” Since then, campaigners have been working to free Griner. Given that she is a WNBA legend, it’s shocking that Griner’s team and the league have only issued brief statements about her arrest. As one of the most powerful sports leagues in the country which has prided itself in being involved in numerous social justice campaigns, the WNBA should be doing so much more. Leagues have the responsibility to protect their athletes, and it’s extremely disappointing to see the WNBA take such a small role in trying to help one of their most prominent athletes. One reason the case may have been swept under the rug by the WNBA is the sensitivity between Russian and American officials since the invasion of Ukraine. In addition, Griner’s
wife specifically asked for privacy on Instagram. However, another likely motive for the league’s silence is that they are directly to blame for Griner being in Russia in the first place. If the league paid its stars the way other sports leagues do, Griner likely would have just stayed in the U.S. This tragedy sheds light on how female athletes are undervalued in the United States. If women’s sports were more respected in the U.S., then these athletes wouldn’t have to travel around the world to get paid the amount of money they deserve. Now more than ever, there is a demand to pay female athletes a proper salary. The American sports community need to wake up and demand changes from the WNBA. There is absolutely no reason a country with such homophobic laws like Russia should treat an LGBTQ+ basketball player better than the WNBA does.
