“She Really Is A Game-Changer”

She had reached the point in her career where she felt ready to make the jump to professional tennis when the world – and the WTA Tour – shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a crossroads, Noel knew she had a decision to make. During a game of pickleball with a friend who was playing collegiately at Yale, the topic of college tennis arose.

And Noel couldn’t help but wonder if that was a viable path for her.

After a discussion with her family, she realized it might be just what she needed.

“I never considered a college career at all. It never even crossed my mind. When it came down to it, it was like ‘Is this really what you’re going to do?’…But I was talking to my mom and was like ‘What am I going to do? It’s been months now with nothing to do. We don’t know when the tour is opening,’” Noel said. “I had intended to use all of 2020 to play pro events. I was just going to forego my last year of juniors and it just stopped. My mom was like ‘What about school?’ and I said ‘All right. What about it?’ and that was it. I committed immediately.”

Noel started her college career at Iowa, where as a freshman in 2021 she posted a 24-1 record in singles and a 13-6 mark in doubles.

She was named the Big Ten Player of the Year, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year and earned recognition as an ITA All-American.

But she injured her ankle at the 2021 NCAA Singles Tournament and struggled to get back on the court after that.

“I was very hurt from May 24, 2021, up until…I’d say I was fully recovered, fully, fully back in September [of 2022]. It was a long year and a half for me. I found out I had to have surgery mid-January this year and I didn’t play for five months,” Noel said. “Mentally, it was exhausting. I’d wake up and go to school and do rehab, every single day. It was hard because I also didn’t know what to expect. I’d never been through such a serious injury before. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel coming back or would it still hurt those kinds of things.”

As she navigated that tough stretch, Noel made the decision to transfer and the opportunity to play at Miami for head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews proved an intriguing one.

She knew the Hurricanes were one of the nation’s most successful programs and Yaroshuk-Tews had a track record of developing individual players.

Miami offered her a fresh start and she was ready to take it.

“I spoke to a couple of my friends and people that…