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

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The Bears will also be bringing a good dose of Cal spirit with them.

The team has a tradition unlike any other — when the postseason rolls around, players spray-paint their tennis shoes blue and gold in honor of the university they play for and represent.

“Everyone kind of puts their own spin on it,” says coach Amanda Augustus, whose kicks are also a bright blue and gold. “But it has to be school colors.”

Some choose an electric gold that mirrors the state’s California poppies paired with a true and bright Yale blue — the two sources that the University of California borrowed its colors from. Other players are a little more subtle, preferring a metallic gold that doesn’t catch the eye as much but still stands out on the courts of Hellman Tennis Complex.

Some players take their Cal spirit beyond their footwear. Sophomore Zsofi Susanyi and freshman Klara Fabikova had blue streaks in their normally blond hair last weekend. Each also painted her nails in the university’s colors, alternating blue and gold for each finger.

Even the athletic tape that the players wore this weekend — normally green or pink — was shades of either blue or gold.

But the longest-standing tradition is definitely the shoes. Augustus says that the tradition predates her time as a player for Cal in the late ’90s. Her coach back then — the legendary Jan Brogan, who led the Bears to 25 NCAA appearances — also couldn’t pinpoint an exact date.

“I would be guessing as I coached for 29 years,” Brogan says. “But I can pin it down to the Lisa Albano era.”

Lisa Albano played for Cal from 1988 to 1992, placing the shoe-painting tradition at more than 20 years old.

Augustus carries on the tradition, having her players lay cardboard down on the track in Edwards Stadium so that they can spray paint their shoes. They have to paint a few weeks before the postseason begins, or else the shoes won’t be dry in time.

But the Bears haven’t had to worry about jinxing their postseason chances or painting the shoes prematurely yet — in Augustus’ six seasons as head coach, her teams haven’t missed the postseason once.

Cal’s rivals have caught on to the tradition and have started doing something similar, but the players maintain that the idea originated in Berkeley.

“We did it first,” says sophomore Cecilia Estlander. “USC and UCLA have kind of started doing it, but we did it first.”

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

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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

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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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On Tuesday, the selection show for the NCAAs revealed No. 8 Cal would be hosting Stony Brook, Auburn, and Saint Mary’s. The Bears will take on Stony Brook on May 10 at 10 a.m. at Hellman Tennis Complex. The winners of the Cal/Stony Brook and Auburn/St. Mary’s matches will battle each other in the second round the next day.

The team, however, is more concerned with the later stages of the tournament.

Due to the way the seeding worked out, Cal will not face another Pac-12 school until at least the semifinals — should it make it that far. The Bears could face either USC, Stanford, or Arizona State in those semifinals or could see UCLA in the championship.

Only those four Pac-12 teams made the tournament.

“I was a little disappointed to not see more of our conference teams selected,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “Normally we have 7 or so. I think we play good tennis out here.”

Augustus attributes the lack of west coast teams to rules by the NCAA that reward teams for playing easy schedules and therefore amassing impressive records.

“Hopefully they’ll revisit some of these new rules like the .500 rule that I think rewarded teams for going around and playing an easier schedule and scheduling a lot of matches,” Augustus said.

The Pac-12, a tough conference for tennis, doesn’t get the benefit of easy matches. This has resulted in lower seeds for the Pac-12 schools, with USC the highest at No. 5.

But the benefit is that the Pac-12 schools are better prepared for the tough competition.

“I think that’s why our schools always do well in the postseason — because we play tough matches against each other,” Augustus said. “I think it will show by the end of the tournament how strong the 5 teams are that did get selected.”

Meanwhile, the players are not thinking that deeply about the structure of the tournament. They’re just happy to be at home for two consecutive weeks to finish up school before travelling to Chicago for the later rounds of the NCAAs.

“Honestly right now, I’m just thinking about school and finishing up the finals and everything,” Anett Schutting said. “Then I can just focus on tennis.”

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

The post Cal women’s tennis to host Regional appeared first on The Daily Californian.

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

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Rivalry match? Check. Top-15 teams? Check. Possible title on the line? Check.

When the Cal women’s tennis team takes on Stanford on Friday at the Hellman Tennis Complex at 12:30 p.m., the stakes will be as high as they have been for any match this season.

The match could determine a share of the conference title.

At the same time Cal and Stanford are battling, USC will be playing its own rival in UCLA. If the Trojans lose that match, then the winner of the Cal-Stanford match will share the Pac-12 title with USC.

Although USC is favored over UCLA and beat the Bruins earlier in the season, anything can happen in a rivalry match — something the No. 9 Bears are fully aware of.

Despite Cal’s superior ranking, the No. 12 Cardinal (16-3, 8-1 in the Pac-12) have had the Bears’ number in recent years.

Cal has dropped its last seven dual meets against the Cardinal. The Bears (14-5, 8-1) have not beaten Stanford since April of 2009 — including a loss to the Cardinal in Palo Alto in March.

In that loss, Cal was without sophomore Zsofi Susanyi and senior Annie Goransson, both of whom will play in Friday’s tilt.

Susanyi is the No. 5 singles player in the country, and since her return from injury, she has yet to drop a singles match.

Goransson returned immediately after that match against Stanford and has gone 7-2 in singles since, jumping between courts No. 5 and No. 6.

The return of those two players gives the Bears the advantage of being able to tinker with their lineup in ways they couldn’t in their last match with the Cardinal.

“We’re making a couple of adjustments in doubles,” said Cal Coach Amanda Augustus. “And we’ll definitely give Stanford a different look singleswise.”

It’s been so long since Cal beat Stanford that the two seniors on the squad — Goransson and Tayler Davis — have never done so.

Unless Cal ends up hosting the first rounds of the NCAAs, this will be its last match in Hellman as well as its last chance to knock off Stanford.

“Annie and Tay have contributed tremendously to the success of the program over the last four years,” Augustus said. “To have both of our seniors out there on the court competing on senior day is exciting.”

For Goransson, beating Stanford for the first time in her four years at Cal would be the ultimate farewell.

“That would be pretty big,” Goransson said. “I know we have a good chance, and if we were to beat them, though, that would mean a lot to me. And a lot to the team.”

But Goransson is not focused on the end of her career just yet. She is still working so that Cal can have success in the tournaments that come after the regular season.

“(Playing tennis for Cal has) meant so much to me, it’s hard to express it,” Goransson said. “But I’m not thinking too much about it right now because we have the NCAAs and everything coming up.”

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

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Women’s tennis on the west coast is dominated by Cal, Stanford, USC and UCLA, teams that are consistently ranked among the top in the country. The Sun Devils (15-3, 5-2 in the Pac-12) are usually in the top 25, but each year, they are unable to crack the top four.

A win for No. 21 Arizona State on Friday over the No. 11 Bears would finally place them among those elite teams.

Meanwhile, the match will give Cal (12-5, 6-1) a chance to climb back into the top-10 teams in the country — the place at which it started the season.

After taking on the Sun Devils in the desert on Friday at 1:30 p.m., the Bears will then take on Arizona (9-11, 1-6) on Saturday at noon.

While the Wildcats shouldn’t be too much trouble, the Sun Devils will prove a challenge for Cal.

Arizona State plays an aggressive style of tennis, especially in doubles. By playing close to the net, its players can force quick points that can surprise a team. The Sun Devils also limit their opponent’s options by keeping them toward the center of the court.

“They’re usually very good in doubles,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “They’re always very well-coached, and they make adjustments, especially during the match.”

The aggressive doubles play from Arizona State will prove to be most of the challenge the Bears will face. Last weekend, Cal’s top doubles duo of Anett Schutting and Lynn Chi was uncharacteristically pushed to the brink against an unranked Oregon duo.

The Bears will find out whether last week’s struggles are a pattern or an aberration when Chui and Schutting play Arizona State’s top pair of Jacqueline Cako and Nicole Smith, who hold a 12-3 record on the season.

On the No. 2 doubles court, Cal will also face a challenge. Klara Fabikova has been playing on that court in doubles all year, but her usual partner — Zsofi Susanyi — has been in and out of the lineup with a hip flexor injury.

Susanyi was able to return to doubles last weekend with Fabikova in an 8-1 win but was pulled from singles. Augustus is optimistic that the duo can be back on the court once again on Friday.

“Zsofi’s had a great week, so I think she’s super excited to get back out there,” said Augustus. “They need matches together, and I think, hopefully, they’ll gel.”

The good news for Cal is that the Bears are very familiar with the Sun Devils. In the fall, Arizona State sends many of its players north to compete in Cal’s fall tournament, and later in the semester, the Bears return the favor and send many of their players to Arizona. As a result, players on both squads are familiar with the opposing play style.

And as luck would have it, Cal will be more familiar than usual with the hot, dry weather that they will face in Arizona as well.

“It was ironic because we kinda had a windy, hot week here in Berkeley,” said Augustus, “but that’s good preparation for the conditions that we’ll face in the desert.”

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

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But the match provided an opportunity for Cal (12-5, 6-1) to show improvement.

The Bears’ two promising freshmen — Lynn Chi and Klara Fabikova — looked particularly impressive.

Chi and teammate Anett Schutting was challenged early in doubles by the Oregon squad (12-8, 1-7). Oregon’s duo of Nicole Long and Patricia Skowronski were able to push the Bears to an early 4-5 deficit on the top court.

It was like the duo had lost its focus — Chi and Schutting just kept making errors early on.

However, Schutting and Chi were able to come back and win the match, 7-6(2).

“They were playing from behind because they made a few unforced errors early in the match,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus of the doubles team.

“We had to let them adjust on their own a little bit, and they did. I was happy to see them pull that match out for sure.”

Augustus found the close match to be good practice for the squad.

“I think it was good to have a little bit of a test,” Augustus said. “Coming off the high of last weekend, it would be real easy to take the opponent lightly. The girls did a really good job of carrying over, and I think they focused really well today.”

Cal entered singles with a new lineup. Fabikova, who has consistently played on court No. 3, was bumped up to court No. 2 due to her recent strong play.

“We gave her an opportunity to play on a higher court — I think she’s earned it,” Augustus said. “Just testing her a little bit, and she responded really well to the challenge.”

In recent weeks, Fabikova has dominated in singles play, winning her last seven singles matches. That streak includes tough opponents such as UCLA’s Kyle McPhillips and USC’s Zoe Scandalis.

Even on the higher court, Fabikova dominated as usual.

She defeated Skowronski in singles, 6-2, 6-1. Though Fabikova was favored in that match, Augustus emphasised the challenge Fabikova faced in Skowronski’s experience and aggressive play.

“Skowronski has played at (court) No. 1 for them a lot, and she’s just solid,” said Augustus. “She has a really good volley.”

Earlier in the day, it was Skowronski’s ability to come up to the net that pushed Schutting and Chi in doubles. This did not prove to be a problem for Fabikova.

Fabikova’s move to the second court meant that Cal’s other promising freshman — Chi — was moved down to court No. 3. Essentially, the two players switched places.

For Augustus, Fabikova’s success proves that Cal has two talented freshmen that can each play at a high level.

“Obviously, when Lynn is doing great too, it’s a nice problem to have,” Augustus said.

“You can put people in different positions, and they can be successful.”

Each of Cal’s top five singles players won her match in straight sets. Kelly Chui on court No. 6 was the only Cal player to lose a set.

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

The post Cal women’s tennis shuts out Oregon appeared first on The Daily Californian.

If the Bears can close out the season without a loss, all they need is for USC to lose one match to claim a share of what would be their first-ever Pac-12 title.

So when the Cal women’s tennis team begins the final stretch of their season as they host Oregon at 1:30 p.m. on Friday at Hellman Tennis Complex, they will be looking ahead. Only four matches are left, and the Pac-12 title is within reach for the Bears.

No. 11 Cal (11-5, 5-1) will be a huge favorite against an Oregon squad (11-6, 1-5) that has struggled since the start of Pac-12 play. The Ducks have only one ranked player and have lost to several opponents that the Bears have crushed. Cal’s goal in this match will be to prepare itself for the next two weeks — a road trip to Arizona and a final home match against Stanford.

“We’re just starting our next segment of the season of this month of kind of building through this week, given we only have this one match,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus.

Though a victory against Oregon is nearly assured, the team is treating the match seriously to prepare them for the next two weeks against tougher opponents who will likely prove a challenge.

“Usually, their top couple of girls are pretty good — they’re just maybe not as deep as other teams,” said Augustus. “I think they like quick points. They’re fairly aggressive in doubles.”

With a short week — only one match instead of the usual two — and an easy matchup, the team has long-term goals in mind. After the Pac-12 title is handed out at the end of the season, the Pac-12 Championships tournament will take place the next week in Ojai. Two weeks after that will be the NCAAs in Illinois.

Augustus calls this the final segment of the team’s schedule.

“We periodize our schedule,” she said. “This is our last work-hard, improve-each-week segment, and then we have Pac-12s. Our final cycle is NCAAs that go through the end of May.”

The purpose of these periodizations is to have the team ready to peak at the right times.

“We have so many matches all year long, and you obviously can’t play your best every single week,” said Augustus. “So we set up different phases, and for us in our last segment, it was to peak and be ready for the UCLA and USC matches.”

In this final segment of the regular season, the goal is to peak for the Stanford match and the subsequent Pac-12s. Stanford also has only one loss in the conference and is in the same position as Cal — it just needs USC to lose once to be in the hunt for the title.

The Cardinal has won or shared the Pac-12 title for 14 of the last 15 years. It’s very likely that the match that decides this year’s title will be the season finale against Cal.

The road to that finale — and the title — begins at home against the Ducks.

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

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