Inside Ava Esposito's All-American run at the NCAA Tournament — and her decision to stick with the school she loves
Ava Esposito was a low-lineup player at Auburn when she came out of nowhere to go on a breakthrough run at sectionals and nationals last November. Here's a look inside that magic run.
Ava Esposito remembers waking up to the buzz on the second day of the NCAA Tournament.
The Auburn junior was in the singles bracket at the individual national championships last Nov. 18-23 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando. She’d made it past the first round and into the round of 32 on the 19th. That campus had been flooded with many of the best players in college tennis — and on this day, in the round of 32, all everyone was talking about, and posting about, was it being “All-American Day.” It’s an unofficial name, it’s what the athletes call it, because everyone who makes the Sweet 16 is named All-American — so the round of 32 is make-or-break on that dream: The winners advance, and earn All-American status, and the losers come up empty.
No pressure, right?
Unseeded Esposito played the No. 6 overall seed, Anastasiia Grechkina of Pepperdine.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I have nothing to lose. I’m going to go take what I deserve,’” Esposito recalls. “And I played probably the best match I played all fall, and I think the best match I played in a while.”
Esposito won in straight sets at 6-4, 6-3, to advance to the Sweet 16, highlighting a stellar fall run for her in individual play, and the culmination of an up-and-down journey through college on the way to finally achieving that All-American dream. Esposito closed her tournament losing only to the eventual national champion, Reese Brantmeier of North Carolina.
“It was one of the best moments of my coaching career. … It was really, really cool to see,” Auburn head coach Jordan Szabo said. “Her mother was able to be there to witness both of those weeks (sectionals and nationals). It was just a lot of fun to see somebody really kind of grow into themselves and get confident and achieve what she wanted to achieve in college — one of her big goals and something she’ll have forever.”
Esposito is a lanky Southpaw, listed at 5-foot-11, who plays aggressive, first-strike tennis and is younger than her peers in her class. She signed with Auburn a year early. Szabo describes Esposito as a girl who loves Auburn, who works hard and does the right things, and never causes the staff any headaches because they know she’s going to do the right things. She’s a regular on the SEC Academic Honor Roll and an ITA Scholar Athlete.
And she was highly rated as a recruit. She was rated as a five-star by Tennis Recruiting, the top prospect out of the state of Connecticut and she was the 52nd-ranked recruit nationwide when she signed. As a kid she won the New England Junior Sectionals Championship in the 12-under division then later won the 18-under division.
But there was a rocky road ahead at Auburn. She was in and out of the lineup her freshman year, and late in the season former Auburn head coach Caroline Lilley was fired under shrouded circumstances. Everything was going sideways, and she was faced with staff turnover, roster turnover, and the real possibility that she may have to transfer — but she didn’t want to.
“I love everything about Auburn,” Esposito said. “It would have been really hard to leave this place.”
She hadn’t achieved her dreams, like of being an All-American, she hadn’t even had a full season of playing time yet. She was an early enrollee, wasn’t even supposed to be in college yet, and it was all going so sour — but she didn’t want to give up on Auburn, on the school she committed to. “I couldn’t see myself playing anywhere else,” she said.
In walked Szabo.
Auburn’s administration made a splash hire with Szabo, who as head coach at Texas A&M won the 2024 team national championship and won three straight SEC titles. He faced a turbulent transition too, hired to clean the mess left by Lilley and the move becoming official before that Aggies’ postseason run even finished. With as much turnover as there’d be, he needed to fill out a roster.
Szabo remembered Esposito from SEC play — a raw, tall freshman with a big wingspan and left-handed stance that combined with that height could give a lot of girls a lot of problems.
Yeah. He could work with that.