At the first team meeting of the semester, Coach Sara O’Leary invited the women’s tennis team to think about cups. Not cups as in trophies — though assuredly those are always a goal — but cups in the drink-carrying sense of the word.
“If your cup is not full,” O’Leary said, “you can't pour into this team.”
The analogy resonated with senior Annabelle Xu. It was a reminder that, in order to be in the best position to help the team, she had to be in the best position to help herself.
The star Canadian will be the first to admit that her junior year was a little up and down. Nagging injuries add up over a long season, and the workload adjustment that comes from the McIntire School of Commerce’s Integrated Core Experience can be steep. There can be a mental weight to all of that, one amplified in Xu’s case by a burning question about what she wanted to do after graduation.
It is worth noting here that Xu is great at tennis. The No. 23 singles player in the NCAA already has a stacked resume, which includes a decorated junior career, professional tournament experience and a Round of 16 appearance in the NCAA Singles Championship. Even in her up-and-down third year, she made the All-ACC third team, posted a winning record against a difficult schedule and ended the season ranked in the top 50 for both singles and doubles.
O’Leary describes Xu as one of the fastest players she has ever coached, with a versatile, high-IQ game well-suited for the professional tour.
“She moves so well on the court, and she has every shot,” O’Leary said. “We've been working on her slice a little more — I would say she doesn't use that that often — so that she can add a little versatility, but she's just a lot of fun to coach because she has every shot.”
But Xu spent a lot of time debating if that was the next step she wanted to take.
She did not play any professional tournaments in 2024, partly due to her new workload and partly due to her uncertainty about her post-graduation plans. But after playing a tournament in her hometown of Montreal over the 2025 spring break and scheduling a handful of tournaments over the summer to see if the tour life was for her, Xu is now all in.
“Coming into college, I definitely wanted to play pro after,” Xu said. “Throughout the years, sometimes I changed what I wanted to do, but now I'm back and ready to play pro after college.”
Having that clear goal in mind is valuable for Xu, both as a player and a leader on the team. O’Leary recognizes that — both her and Xu said that the lack of clarity on what comes after walking the Lawn was to some degree responsible for inconsistencies last season — and said that taking time over the summer to test the waters of life on tour may have been just what Xu needed.
“She's come back with this newfound clarity, discipline, excitement for her tennis — and for school,” O’Leary said. “But I think she is definitely much more focused on tennis and wants to try playing professionally when she's done here. So it was just really great to see how much more clear she was with what she wants to do.”
With Xu now stepping into the spotlight as the team’s top singles player and a senior presence in the locker room, performance expectations will already be high, but so too will her responsibilities behind the scenes.
Xu said she has always had bits and pieces of a leadership role, but her recent decision to commit to professional tennis affords her the opportunity to be a real tone-setter on and off the court.
“We're really big on that — leading by example and just making sure that you're taken care of before you can help someone else,” Xu said. “That's something that I've been continuously working on, and it's something that I definitely am emphasizing this year, especially wanting to play pro after — I need to make sure that everything that I'm doing is top tier.”
The cup analogy helps here. It might seem at first that focusing on herself and laying the groundwork for a professional career is at odds with Xu’s desire to be a great teammate, but it is actually the opposite. Committing to the professional path demands a lot of her mentally, and figuring out how to respond to that adversity is how Xu intends to put herself in a position to succeed while also supporting the team.
“The most important thing for me is being self-disciplined and just understanding that every day is not going to be the best day, but still making the best out of everything,” Xu said. “Sometimes it's going to be ugly, but if I can get through those days and come out with a win or just come out with a good practice that's going to help me in the long run.”
Xu’s perspective has shifted a fair bit since she first stepped foot on Grounds. She admits that, coming from the Canadian tennis federation, where everything was honed in on her and what she needed, adjusting to being on a team was something difficult for her in her first year and something she was not even particularly sure she enjoyed.
But that was the Xu of 2022, not of 2025. Now, as a senior with higher expectations and a keystone role on one of the best teams in the sport, she is taking on each day and each match with a newfound clarity of mind and ambition.
That means learning to be a leader on the team and serving as an example for others. Even more than that, it means entering her final year with clear expectations and priorities — not just in terms of her professional career, but also in getting the most out of her last year in college.
“I want to be All-American, and I want to make a deep run at the NCAA title,” Xu said. “But I think beyond that, just really taking each day as an opportunity to get better, and just understanding that everything is unfortunately my last, but not being sad about it, and just being happy that I get one more chance.”
Xu has started the fall strong, with two tough-fought singles wins over top 30 opponents and two doubles wins to match with her partner, sophomore Martina Genis Salas. She enters this week’s ITA All-American Championship as the lone Cavalier starting in the main draw for both singles and doubles, with an opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Championships in November for both. In that sense, her senior year is well underway.
The same can be said outside of tournament play. She is aware that the lasts are piling up — she said she spent her whole summer excited for that last first day of class in August — but, with each passing day and match, she is doing what she can to keep her cup full, so that she can continue to pour her all into the team.
“I feel like throughout my time here I've definitely grown and just learned that even if you're not on your best day, if you can give whatever you have for yourself, you might just surprise yourself,” Xu said. “And you can help your teammates have a good day.”
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