What to know about UConn’s roster ahead of summer practice
For the first time this offseason, the UConn women’s basketball team will reunite Wednesday to begin its session of summer workouts.
The Huskies are coming off their first national championship loss and first trip to the title game since 2016. But more than that, the team had one of, if not the, most turbulent seasons in program history.
Ten of UConn’s 12 players missed at least two games due to injury or illness this past season, including 2021 National Player of the Year Paige Bueckers, who missed 19 games due to a tibial plateau fracture and a meniscus tear. Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2021, missed 11 games with a foot injury. Aubrey Griffin sat out the whole season due to a preseason ankle injury and back surgery.
Two months following the conclusion of the 2021-22 season, the Huskies begin their preparation to get back to the title game next spring and avenge their loss to South Carolina.
UConn lost three seniors to graduation — all of whom declared for the WNBA with two currently on rosters — and one sophomore to the transfer portal. The Huskies are bringing in one grad transfer from Fairfield and a pair of top-five incoming freshman recruits.
Here’s a quick look at what UConn’s roster looks like going into its summer session:
DORKA JUHASZ
Juhasz, who transferred last year from Ohio State, announced she will spend her final year of collegiate eligibility in Storrs after suffering a season-ending wrist injury in the Elite Eight. Juhasz had surgery for the left wrist fracture March 30 and was given a four-month recovery timeline. She told Hearst Connecticut Media she got her cast off on May 24 and is hoping to begin light dribbling and passing workouts in
on trying to fulfill other people’s expectations,” said Gauff, who hasn’t dropped a set through five matches. “I know no matter how good or bad my career is, I know I’m a good person, so I think that’s a good message for young people. … Just know: If you love yourself, who cares what anyone else thinks?”
Her quick rise is quite a contrast from the long road her next opponent, Martina Trevisan of Italy, traveled along the way to her own first Slam semifinal at age 28.
The 59th-ranked Trevisan is emotive as can be, and she screamed while thrusting both arms overhead and letting her racket fly after eliminating U.S. Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, who was seeded 17th, by a 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-3 score in a match between a pair of left-handers.
Fernandez was treated by a trainer for a problem with her right foot after the match’s fifth game and her movement was hampered throughout. About three hours following the match, reporters were told that Fernandez would not speak to the media “on advice of the tournament medical team due to” the injury.
Trevisan eventually finished things off nearly an hour after holding her first match point while serving for the victory at 5-4 in the second set. She doublefaulted twice in the ensuing tiebreaker.
“I felt a lot of tension,” Trevisan said later, “and I was so nervous … my arms felt it.”
So after that lapse, Trevisan took a trip to the locker room.
“I was very tired and I had to go to the bathroom. I got just a quick moment alone in a room, away from the court, away from any people, in silence. It gave
me a chance to regroup. I threw some water on my face,” she said. “I was playing to get to a semifinal, and I still had a set in front of me, so I had to start from scratch.”
The reset worked wonders.
Trevisan grabbed the initial seven points of the third set and took a 4-0 lead in what would become her 10th consecutive victory on the heels of earning her first WTA title at Rabat, Morocco, the week before the French Open.
In 2020, Trevisan beat Gauff in the second round at Roland Garros on the way to reaching the quarterfinals as a qualifier who was ranked 159th and making only her second maindraw
Grand Slam appearance.
About two months beforehand, Trevisan wrote a blog post that discussed in detail her experience with anorexia as a teenager. At 16, Trevisan was a promising prospect whose mother taught tennis — and named her after Martina Navratilova — and whose brother played professionally (her father was a pro soccer player).
Beset by pressure, Trevisan quit her sport and took a 41⁄2-year break, before returning in 2014.
“I’m happy on the court. I’m doing what I love,” she said Tuesday. “So my past is the past, and it helps me to be in the present, to be what I am right now.”
NADAL TOPS DJOKOVIC
PARIS — Rafael Nadal got past rival Novak Djokovic 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4) in a monumental match in the French Open quarterfinals to move a step closer to his 14th championship at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament and 22nd major trophy overall.
The match began a little past 9 p.m. Tuesday and concluded more than four hours later, after 1 a.m. Wednesday.
Nadal ended the topseeded Djokovic’s bid for a second consecutive title in Paris. He also made sure Djokovic remains behind him in the Slam count with 20.