Ashley Chen/File

The Cal women’s tennis team might rank seventh on The Daily Californian’s Power Rankings right now, but expect the young squad to jump much higher in coming years.

The team, which finished the year ranked at No. 9 in the country and made it to the elite eight of the NCAA tournament, is retaining virtually all of its top players.

At the beginning of the year, Zsofi Susanyi came in playing on the top court for Cal. She plays solid, all-around tennis, waiting for her opponent to make a mistake — something she can afford to do because she rarely makes any herself. When she plays, her intensity shows in a way that is only reminiscent of elite players — imagine an on-the-court personality like that of Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods.

And Susanyi wasn’t just the best player for the Bears — she was briefly tied for the top spot in the entire country.

But when injuries sent Susanyi out of the lineup for much of her sophomore season, incoming senior Anett Schutting rose to take her place.

Schutting’s aggressive, win-first mentality enabled her to put together an 11-5 record on the top court in singles, and she soon rose in the ranks to the top 10 in the country.

While Susanyi battled injuries and Schutting battled top opponents, two freshmen were tearing up the court for the Bears. Lynn Chi played as high as the No. 2 court when Susanyi was out, posting an 8-2 record when she did so. Shortly after that, Klara Fabikova rose in the lineup, using her powerful shots to also ascend to the No. 2 court, where she put up a 5-1 record.

For those of you keeping track at home, that leaves Cal with at least two players (Schutting and Susanyi) who have proven themselves on the No. 1 court and two more (Chi and Fabikova) who are more than capable of winning consistently on the No. 2 court.

Let that sink in for a moment. Not all those players can play on the top two courts, which means that two of them will be picking off opponents on courts No. 3 and No. 4.

That young roster led to a win over Stanford, the eventual NCAA champions, for the first time in four years. The team also topped tough opponents like then-No. 6 USC and then-No. 4 UCLA and was only knocked out of the NCAA tournament by top-ranked Florida in a close match, 4-2.

If the team can live up to the hype, it will be one of the best Cal teams in recent years.

Consider things from head coach Amanda Augustus’ perspective. She has been chasing an NCAA championship since the ’90s, when she played for Cal. When she got the coaching job in 2007, she immediately reached the finals in her first two seasons but could never pull off the big win.

But if she has a recruiting class to fill courts No. 5 and No. 6 that is as good as the Chi-Fabikova class she brought in last year, the coach will have as good of a chance at a title as she has ever had.

Contact Riley McAtee at rmcatee@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @riley_mcatee

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Michael Tao/File

From the rankings and final results, it seems as if the Cal women’s tennis team plateaued in 2013.

The Bears began the season as the No. 7 team and finished the year at No. 9 with a loss to then-top ranked Florida in the Elite Eight. Last year, Cal similarly lost to the top team, then UCLA, in the NCAA tournament of the Elite Eight. Additionally, the team’s 19-6 record this year nearly mirrors its 20-7 effort from 2012.

But looking beyond the statistics, there is evidence of long-term improvement and a bright future for the young squad.

“We definitely took a step up this year,” said head coach Amanda Augustus. “It’s easy to look and say, ‘OK, they got to the quarters last year, they got to the quarters this year,’ but I think we competed and pushed really hard.”

At the beginning of the year, it looked like Cal’s top player was sophomore Zsofi Susanyi. After a breakout freshman year in which she posted a 41-8 record in singles matches, the Hungarian native soon found herself tied for the No. 1 ranking on February 12.

But when a hip-flexor injury forced Susanyi to the sideline, it was junior Annett Schutting’s turn to step up.

Despite never playing higher than the third court for Cal in 2012, Schutting looked comfortable almost immediately at the top court. She began the season as the No. 22 player in the country but quickly climbed into the top 10 and was ranked No. 8 on May 2.

Schutting also played on the top doubles court with one of Cal’s young freshman stars — Lynn Chi.

Chi moved onto the No. 2 court after Susanyi’s injury early in the season for the Bears, and she made the most of her opportunity. The fast and aggressive Chi posted an impressive 8-2 record on the No. 2 court and finished with an overall 19-3 record in dual matches.

However, despite her impressive play, Chi was soon bumped from the No. 2 court when Cal’s other freshman, Klara Fabikova, was simply too dominating on the No. 3 court to ignore.

Fabikova was ranked as the No. 2 freshman or new player in the preseason, but a back injury hampered her early in the year. When Fabikova returned, she used her big-hit ability and powerful shots to punish opponents on the No. 3 court. After weeks of dominating performances — including over strong opponents like Zoe Scandalis of USC and Kyle McPhillips of UCLA — Fabikova was bumped up to the No. 2 court, behind only Annett Schutting.

“Both she and Lynn had a really great freshman year in both school and tennis,” Augustus said. “I couldn’t be happier with their progress.”

The freshmen, along with Susanyi and Schutting, give the Bears a young core to work with for next season.

“I think we have a really good group, and other teams know that our top 4 are returning next year,” Augustus said. “And we only have one who will be a senior in that group, and that’s Annett.”

The challenge for Cal next year will be replacing graduating seniors Tayler Davis and Annie Goransson, who played on the No. 5 and No. 6 courts, respectively. But a recruiting class as strong as the Fabikova-Chi class of this year would make that transition easy, and the Cal roster would finally be able to definitively stand out against powerhouses USC, UCLA and Stanford.

Meanwhile, the Bears are happy with their finish, and the coaching staff is excited to move forward with a young roster that they feel can only get better in time.

“With any young team, there’s a lot of work that goes in to molding and building and teaching, so that’s something that Cordell Ho (the assistant coach) and I really enjoy doing,” Augustus said. “That’s the fun part of our job.”

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

The post Cal women’s tennis team looks toward a bright future appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Michael Tao/File

Sometimes, it feels like the tennis season never ends.

A national champion was crowned on Tuesday. Classes wrapped up more than a week ago. And yet, the Bears still had tennis to play.

Immediately following the NCAA team championships that ended on May 21, the singles and doubles tournaments got straight into action the next day in Urbana, Ill.

On Wednesday, the Bears sent three players to compete in the singles tournament, while no one made the doubles tournament. While Cal was unable to take home a victory, Zsofi Susanyi was able to advance to the Sweet 16.

Of the three players who made the singles tournament — Anett Schutting, Klara Fabikova and Zsofi Susanyi — Schutting was the first to fall.

Schutting got off to a slow start despite being the No. 8 player in the country and ultimately fell to Rice’s Natalie Beazant.

Meanwhile, the other Bears were able to advance.

The freshman Fabikova also had a slow start but was able to gain momentum en route to a 7-5, 6-2 victory over UNC’s Witney Kay.

Sophomore Zsofi Susanyi, meanwhile, featured no slow starts on the first day. She dominated her first opponent, Caroline Rohde-Moe out of Ole Miss, in a 6-3, 6-0 win on Wednesday.

As a result, the freshman and sophomore were able to advance to the NCAA round of 32.

In the second round, Fabikova was the next player to fall.

The freshman out of the Czech Republic faced a huge challenge in No. 11 Mary Weatherholt out of Nebraska. It was a match that she was never expected to win, and there would be no upsets for Fabikova. Weatherholt, who would go on to play in the finals of the tournament, ousted Fabikova in a 6-2, 6-1 route.

Meanwhile, there was still one Bear left standing.

Susanyi was still on the court for Cal. She faced UNLV’s Lucia Batta in the second round after Fabikova’s loss earlier in the day.

Like Susanyi, Batta is from Hungary, and as a result, the two are familiar with each other. With the wind howling, Susanyi was able to post a 6-3, 6-4 victory to advance to the Sweet 16.

In the third round, she faced her first real test of the tournament in No. 16 Yana Koroleva out of Clemson.

Susanyi was on a five-game win streak coming into the match, but she just couldn’t get past Koroleva. The two battled in an incredibly tight match that finished with a 7-5, 7-6(6) score that allowed Koroleva to advance.

The loss is somewhat of a disappointment following Susanyi’s trip to the semifinals last year. But it was an expected disappointment. Susanyi battled a hip flexor injury all year, and her No. 5 rating was likely inflated.

The loss brought Cal’s season to a close.

Though the Bears do not have any titles to bring with them back to Berkeley, they have a young roster to be excited about. Schutting, Susanyi and Fabikova will most likely represent the top three courts for Cal next year, and the oldest among them is Schutting, a junior.

While the Cal squad cannot boast a championship this year, its future looks bright.

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

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Michael Tao/File

While the NCAA team championships are over, the Bears’ season is not.

The Cal women’s tennis team sent three players to the NCAA singles championships taking place May 22-27 in Urbana, Ill.

The Bears are represented by players who finished the season at the top three courts — Anett Schutting, Klara Fabikova, and Zsofi Susanyi.

Schutting played on the top court for Cal for almost the entire season and is the No. 8 seed in the tournament. However, on Wednesday, she fell in the very first round to Rice’s Natalie Beazant in a match that featured a 45-minute rain delay midway through.

“Anett got off to a bit of a slow start,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “She struggled to find her rhythm, and unfortunately, she ran into a girl that was playing really well and just ran out of time before she could find her game.”

While the rain makes for an environment that is not ideal for tennis, Augustus does not think the weather affected Schutting’s play.

“The conditions are the same for everyone,” she said. “It’s just something, as a tennis player, that you have to work through.”

While Schutting exited early, Cal’s other players were able to advance during the first day of action.

Fabikova has been playing on the No. 2 court for Cal since April despite being a freshman. Like Schutting, she got off to a slow start at the beginning of her match, falling into a 5-2 hole against North Carolina’s Witney Kay.

Fabikova then ripped off five straight games to win the first set and cruised from there to a 7-5, 6-2 victory.

“Klara did a good job of making adjustments,” Augustus said. “There might have been some first-match nerves for her, with it being her first singles tournament.”

With the win, Fabikova will face Nebraska’s Mary Weatherholt in the round of 32. Weatherholt is the No. 11 seed and should present more of a challenge to Fabikova than Kay did.

The final player that made the tournament for Cal — Zsofi Susanyi — just might be the most exciting to follow. Though she has only been playing on the No. 3 court for the Bears, she comes into the tournament as the No. 5 seed. Susanyi was injured earlier in the year, and the coaches decided to bring her back on a lower court while her NCAA ranking remained one of the highest in the country.

Last year, a healthy Susanyi made it to the NCAA singles semifinals — the furthest ever for a Cal freshman.

On Wednesday, she flew through Caroline Rohde-Moe out of Ole Miss in a 6-3, 6-0 victory.

“Zsofi won her match pretty handily,” Augustus said. “She played really smart.”

Susanyi will play UNLV’s Lucia Batta tomorrow in the second round — another player she should be heavily favored over.

But the Bears know to not look too far ahead. The singles tournament is filled with upsets, as the No. 1 seed — Florida’s Lauren Embree — lost today in the first round.

“Everyone in this tournament had a phenomenal year, or they wouldn’t be here,” Augustus said. “You have to take it day by day.”

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

The post Two Bears advance for Cal women’s tennis in NCAA singles tournament appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Close just doesn’t cut it in sports.

In the end, that’s where No. 8 Cal came against No. 1 Florida in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. The Bears nearly pulled the upset in a much more competitive match than the final 4-2 score would suggest.

But before that match, Cal had to battle against No. 9 Alabama on Friday in the Sweet 16. That match was also close — two singles matches went into third sets and two more featured tie-breaker sets.

Since April, Cal has struggled with its doubles play, and it was no different against Alabama. The Crimson Tide soon roared to a 1-0 lead, thanks to 8-5 wins on courts No. 1 and No. 3 in doubles.

“We started first thing in the morning, and we looked a little slow,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus.

But in singles, Cal shrugged off the rust and ripped off four straight wins to claim a 4-1 victory and a spot in the Elite Eight.

Fast forward to Sunday against the Gators, and the story started out in almost the same fashion. Cal lost the doubles point but looked to rebound in singles against the top squad in the country.

Zsofi Susanyi began the Bears’ potential comeback. She flew to a 6-1, 6-1 victory against Florida’s Alexandra Cercone on court No. 3 to even the match.

Meanwhile, junior Anett Schutting had the tough task of facing the No. 1 player in the country, Lauren Embree. Schutting, the No. 8 player herself, could not hold off Embree and fell, 6-2, 6-0 to make the match score 2-1.

On court No. 4, freshman Lynn Chi was engaged with Brianna Morgan, a quick, aggressive player much like herself. Morgan blanked Chi in the first set, 6-0, but Chi began a remarkable turnaround, winning the second set 6-2 and pushing the match to a third set.

“Usually, (Lynn Chi) is pretty aggressive with her opponent, and I think this girl came out and hit the ball at her,” Augustus said. “I think Lynn handled it well, and she settled down and got back to work.”

While Chi attempted to make a comeback, senior Tayler Davis and freshman Klara Fabikova each finished their matches — but with opposite results. While Davis lost 6-1, 6-4, Fabikova pounded her opponent to a 7-5, 6-4 victory. With the match now at 3-2, the result came down to Chi and senior Annie Goransson’s matches.

Florida just needed one more victory to clinch the match, and Goransson was down 5-2 in her second set on the No. 6 court. It would take a small miracle for Cal to come back.

It was a miracle that Cal would not get. Caroline Hitimana attacked Goransson at the net to finally put the match away for the Gators, robbing Chi of her chance at a comeback. The final score was 4-2.

With that, Cal’s season as a team ended, leaving the Bears to think about what could have been.

“Lynn was about to win her match,” Augustus said. “It might have made the difference for one of the seniors — I don’t know.”

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

The post Cal women’s tennis falls to No. 1 Florida in Elite Eight appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Michael Tao/File

For the Cal women’s tennis team, advancing to the Sweet 16 was never a goal.

It was an expectation.

The team has made the Sweet 16 for seven consecutive years — including the last six, with Amanda Augustus as head coach. The Bears’ regular season, like the six seasons before it, has been nothing more than an opening act for the main event.

“Going to the Sweet 16 is part of the culture on our team,” Augustus said.

On Friday, No. 8 Cal will face No. 9 Alabama, whose team made it to the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history.

For the Bears, the question is still the same as it has been all season: Can they go all the way and deliver Cal its first NCAA championship?

It is not out of the question. As a No. 8 seed, Cal advanced to the title match in 2008 and again in 2009 as the No. 9 seed. Ever since those impressive seasons — Augustus’ first two years as the coach — the Bears have been unable to return to the finals.

As the seeding indicates, the Bears will be the favorite in their matchup against the Crimson Tide. Alabama does not have a singles player on its roster ranked in the top 25, while Cal has both No. 5 Zsofi Susanyi and No. 8 Anett Schutting in the top 10.

The Crimson Tide will be the second SEC opponent that the Bears will play in a row and the second team from the state of Alabama. The Cal squad swept Auburn, 4-0, last Saturday at the Hellman Tennis Complex in Berkeley.

If Cal bests the Crimson Tide (21-5) in Urbana, Ill., on Friday, its path will become much more daunting. The Bears will likely have to face top-seeded Florida on Sunday, should they make it to the Elite 8.

The good news for Cal is that the team has been producing its best tennis now than it has been all season. The Bears (18-5) are riding on an eight-match win streak and have brought home 13 victories in their last 14 dual matches.

“If we’re not peaking now, I don’t know,” Augustus said after the Auburn match. “And it seems as some of our health issues are at a place where we can handle them.”

As late as it is in the season, the Bears are healthiest they have ever been. Cal’s top player, fifth-ranked Susanyi, has been in and out of the lineup with a hip flexor injury. Meanwhile, freshman Klara Fabikova, who plays on the No. 2 court in singles and doubles, was hampered early in the season, along with senior Annie Goransson.

All those players were on the court last weekend and appeared to be at full strength.

“I felt good to be back on the court,” Susanyi said. “I feel like I’m 100 percent, and I’m so excited to play.”

The Bears are ready. As they’ve known all along, their dedication and effort all season have been leading up to this weekend.

“We’ll work hard and prepare as we have all season,” Augustus said. “Now it’s just who wants it more.”

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

The post Surging Cal women’s tennis aims for Elite Eight against Alabama appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Michael Tao/File

The Cal women’s tennis team’s Achilles’ heel this season has been its play in doubles.

But not anymore.

In two of their last three matches of the regular season, the Bears had to make a comeback in singles after dropping doubles matches and finding themselves in early 1-0 deficits. This included doubles losses to opponents like Arizona, who weren’t strong enough to even make the 64-team NCAA tournament.

The Bears’ top duo of Lynn Chi and Anett Schutting seemed to be clicking earlier in the year, when they won five straight doubles matches. But down the stretch, the duo was only 3-4 in their last 7 doubles matches of the season.

Match after match, it seemed like the Bears could only hang on in doubles by a thread and would often have to use their strong singles play to bail themselves out later.

But with their drumming of Auburn, 4-0, on Saturday at Hellman Tennis Complex, that may no longer be the case.

It was no surprise that No. 8 Cal cruised through Stony Brook, 4-0, on Friday. But Auburn, the No. 25 team in the nation, was supposed to give Cal a tougher challenge in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Instead, the Bears dominated and earned a trip to the Sweet 16.

Unlike in their usual sluggish starts in the regular season, the Bears exploded in doubles against Auburn. Tayler Davis and Kelly Chui jumped to an 8-1 win on court No. 3, and Anett Schutting and Lynn Chi — the same duo that was struggling just a few weeks ago — beat the No. 10 doubles team in the country with an 8-3 win on the top court to earn the doubles point for the Bears.

“I thought we were solid,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “And then, on court No. 3, we had a really, really good day. That got us off to a great start.”

The Bears carried that momentum over into singles, where the Cal freshmen rocked Hellman Tennis Complex. Lynn Chi raced to a 6-0, 6-1 finish on court No. 4 to give Cal its second point of the match. Meanwhile, Cal’s other freshman, Klara Fabikova, dominated her opponent in a 6-1, 6-1 route.

The Bears needed just one more point to put the match away.

Seniors Tayler Davis and Annie Goransson were each up five games in their second sets, needing just one more game from either to seal the match for the Bears.

“Me and Annie were kind of in a race to see who would finish first,” Davis said. “(Assistant coach) Cordell was sorta joking with me to see who would finish first.”

Davis was able to beat Goransson in their race to finish off the opponent first, winning 6-3 on her court to give the Bears the four points needed to end the match.

It was a fitting end for the senior captain’s last match in Berkeley.

“I think a couple of them had a look up at the scoreboard and may have deferred to their senior captains a little bit,” Augustus said, smiling. “This is her big day.”

Watch an interview with co-captain Tayler Davis here

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

The post Cal women’s tennis team rolls through first rounds of NCAAs, advances to Sweet 16 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Michael Tao/Senior Staff

“Our goal is to be the No. 1 team and win the NCAAs,” said junior Anett Schutting back in February.

And 16 wins and 5 losses later, the Cal women’s tennis team could be in a position to do just that. As the No. 8 team in the country, the Bears earned the right to host the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament.

And though they were only able to muster a second place finish in the Pac-12, the Bears feel good about accomplishing the goal Schutting set three months ago.

“I like our chances,” said freshman Lynn Chi on Wednesday. “Hopefully, we can go all the way. I like our chances for that.”

The Bears (16-5) are prepared to steamroll through this first leg of the tournament. They play their first opponent, Stony Brook, on Friday at 1 p.m. at the Hellman Tennis Complex in Berkeley.

Cal knows little about Stony Brook (12-4), a university smaller than UC Berkeley that is located in Long Island, N.Y. Stony Brook did not play a single ranked opponent all year and only made the tournament by winning the American East Conference.

Should the Bears beat the Seawolves, they will go on to face the winner of the other first-round matchup — either St. Mary’s or Auburn — at noon on Saturday. No. 21 Auburn just missed the cutoff for hosting the first two rounds of the NCAAs, as only the top-16 squads gain home court advantage. Meanwhile the Bears crushed Saint Mary’s in January in a 7-0 route.

As the only Goliath in a first round full of Davids, the biggest challenge for the Bears will be adjusting to the slightly different rules between the tournament and the regular season. Though matches are the same format, they end as soon as a team clinches the match with four points, so some players will not go on to finish their individual match.

“We just play to four, so when we clinch the match, it just stops,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “It’s a little bit of an adjustment mentally to not lose concentration if someone is up and about to win. (They have to be) keeping attention on their own court.”

While the Bears have made it to at least the sweet 16 in the last six years, they are not getting ahead of themselves.

“You have to take it match by match,” Augustus said. “You can’t assume anything at this time of year, because all these teams have played a lot of tennis, and they wouldn’t be in the tournament if they didn’t have a good season.”

For Cal, the real advantage to hosting the beginning of the tournament is not having home court advantage or being the highest seed — it’s being home for finals week. While schools like Stony Brook and Auburn have to make the long trek to Berkeley this week, the Bears will be able to sleep in their own beds at night.

“It’s huge,” Augustus said. “Especially with finals on the horizon and all their office hours, review sessions, tutoring, papers and all this stuff they got. So they don’t have to deal with that too much — until hopefully next week.”

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

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Michael Tao/File

The Cal women’s tennis team zoomed into the Pac-12 Championships in Ojai, Calif., on a seven-game winning streak and with as much momentum as anyone.

They leave in a much different situation.

Zsofi Susanyi, the No. 5 player in the nation, left her third singles match of the weekend with an injury. Susanyi was battling a hip flexor injury all spring that kept her bouncing in and out of the lineup from week to week.

The details and extent of her injury are unknown at this time — she may have reaggravated her hip or be suffering from something else entirely. But if she misses significant time, it will be a huge blow to a Cal squad that had just begun to find its groove with its star player back in the lineup.

Cal also had two other players in the main singles tournament — Anett Schutting and Klara Fabikova. The two met in the third round of matches, with Schutting taking down the freshman Fabikova, 6-2, 6-4.

Schutting then advanced to take on Krista Hardebeck of Stanford in the semifinals but lost, 6-4, 6-2.

Schutting also competed with her partner Lynn Chi in the doubles championships, where the story was similar. In that tournament, Schutting and Chi were also able to advance to the semifinals but lost to USC’s top duo of Kaitlyn Christian and Sabrina Santamaria, who were the top-seeded team coming into the the tournament.

The bright spot of the tournament for the Bears came in the doubles invitational tournament — essentially the tournament for the doubles teams aren’t able to make the main event.

In that tournament, the doubles duo of Annie Goransson and Cecilia Estlander were able to reach the finals. Estlander has rarely played in the spring due to injuries, and the duo had never actually played together before, but they were able to shine.

To get to the finals, Goransson and Estlander had to defeat the top-ranked duo of USC’s Gabi Desimone and Danielle Lao in a 9-7 thriller.

After that, they quickly advanced to the finals and faced the third-seeded duo of Calli Craig and Sarah Pham out of Utah. This match went to the wire. Both teams traded points back and forth until Goransson and Estlander fell 9-8(5) in a tiebreaker.

With that loss, the Bears fell short of their goal of taking home a championship in both of the tournaments.

But the real loss is losing Susanyi. Several Cal players admitted that finally having her back at full strength gave them a boost in confidence. Their confidence has to be taking a hit with Susanyi out yet again.

The good news for the Bears is that they have a week off for Susanyi to get healthy. The NCAAs are the last games that Cal will play all year, but that doesn’t start until well into May. Depending on the extent of her injury, Susanyi could make it back by then.

But tennis is a game of rhythm. Any player who comes back from time off needs matches to get into the groove again — a luxury Susanyi won’t have.

With Susanyi once again missing time, the Bears are left in the same place they were in at the beginning of the season — searching for a way to win without their top player.

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

The post Susanyi hurt again as Cal women’s tennis falls short in Pac-12 Championships appeared first on The Daily Californian.

With a win last weekend over Stanford and a second-place finish in the Pac-12, the No. 9 Cal women’s tennis team is itching to begin the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments and prove itself against the nation’s best.

But before the players can do that, they have one last match to play.

Due to a scheduling quirk, Cal (15-5, 9-1 in the Pac-12) will take on UCSB in Santa Barbara at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Though the Gauchos (14-7) have put together a decent record over the season, their schedule has been filled with unranked and unaccomplished teams. Without a ranked player on the roster, they will have a tough chance competing against Cal, which has four ranked players and two in the top 10.

The match is an odd hiccup for the Bears in a schedule otherwise consisting of weekend matches. But the Tuesday match gives them a chance to hone their skills for the postseason. Two days after the UCSB match, the team will be in Ojai, Calif., for the Pac-12 Championships.

After the win over Stanford, the Cal team feels like it is close to peaking, and the players plan to use this UCSB match as a springboard to bring their level of play to its full potential.

“I think we’re finally gelling the way we need to,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “Our goal is to peak in the (NCAA) Tournament.”

The match gives many of the players a chance to practice more in doubles, in which Cal has lost the doubles point in both of its last two matches. Zsofi Susanyi recently returned from injury, and her getting more playing time with her doubles partner, Klara Fabikova, should help the duo gel the way Augustus wants.

“(Susanyi and Fabikova) just need matches,” Augustus said. “Hopefully next week, they get a lot of matches doubleswise to just kinda get them better in sync.”

Those two in sync will be a huge asset for the team. The Cal team has been regularly facing 1-0 deficits going into singles play as a result of losses in doubles.

But while the Bears are struggling in doubles, they are dominating in singles action. The team has won at least four of the six singles courts in its last four matches. Cal has used that dominance to bail itself out of early deficits and win matches.

Susanyi back on the court is a boost for the entire team. As the current No. 5 singles player in the country, Susanyi at full strength gives the other players a leap in confidence.

“Now that we have Zsofi back, we can definitely see what is possible for us,” said senior Tayler Davis. “Because before, without her, I think we weren’t as confident.”

A win against UCSB would build off the momentum that Cal gained from beating Stanford and would send the team into the postseason with a six-game winning streak and as much confidence as any team in the field.

“I think we’ve prepared really well and worked so hard for a long time now,” said senior Annie Goransson. “We’ll just see how far we can take it.”

Riley McAtee covers women’s tennis. Contact him at rmcatee@dailycal.org

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