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.

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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Two new starting freshmen and a host of injuries led Cal to start with an uncharacteristically mediocre record of 3-3. However, since then, the squad has won five of its last six. The Bears now have a respectable record of 8-4, including being 2-0 in Pac-12 play.

In their quest for a conference title, the Bears hope to extend that undefeated in-conference streak this weekend when they host Colorado and Utah at the Hellman Tennis Complex in Berkeley. The Bears will face the Buffaloes at 1:30 pm on Friday. On Saturday, Cal will take on Utah (7-5, 1-3) at noon, also at home.

No. 13 Cal will be a heavy favorite in these matches. Colorado (6-8, 1-3) won its first Pac-12 match ever two weeks ago following a winless first season in the conference last year. Utah, meanwhile, ranks well outside of the top 50.

Cal’s slow start was due to the changes the squad had to make early in the season. The Bears are starting two freshmen in both doubles and singles. They’ve dealt with injuries to many key players, including their best player, Zsofi Susanyi, who is still out with a leg injury.

But Cal’s recent play has shown that the team has overcome those changes. Though many opponents during their recent hot stretch have not been top teams — none of them were in the top 25 when Cal played them — the Bears are playing with confidence and chemistry now that they did not have early on.

The doubles team of junior Anett Schutting and freshman Lynn Chi is the perfect example. Since being thrust onto the top court in Susanyi’s absence, the two have delivered a 5-2 record in doubles.

Schutting attributes their recent improvement to their communication and hard work.

“The communication part is very important after a point — what worked, what didn’t work,” the junior from Estonia said. “We’ve just been trying to work on our tactics and what we’re good at and what needs to get better.”

Against Colorado and Utah, the squad will be able to continue working on that chemistry. Even though these should be easier matches, both will provide preparation for tougher schools later down the line.

“We take them more as good practice matches,” Schutting said. She was adamant, however, in maintaining that that does not mean the Bears are taking them lightly.

“For me, it’s not going to be different for who I play, whether it’s Utah or USC,” Schutting said. “Yes, of course there may be more excitement, but I’m going to have the same mental approach.”

Maintaining that mental approach will be key for Cal when it faces tougher teams.

“Every match counts,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus.

It would be easy to say that this weekend’s matchups count a little less, but they are no less important for the Bears as they work to prepare for the top teams they will be playing soon.

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

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The No. 15 Bears moved to 8-4 on the season, including winning five of their last six, when they convincingly beat San Diego State 6-1 on Sunday at the Aztec Tennis Center in San Diego.

The most impressive performance in the victory was Annie Goransson’s 6-0, 6-0 win over San Diego State’s Michela Casanova on the sixth court. Goransson is returning from a back injury that sidelined her for the first month of the season.

This is her third match into her return, and she’s won every match in convincing fashion since she’s been back.

“She has three years of playing a lot of matches for Cal,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “So she knows what it takes.”

The team has been easing Goransson back into the lineup, which explains her play on the sixth court and her absence from doubles over the last two weeks.

With the kind of impressive wins she has had recently, her return to full action could be close.

Not every player dominated like Goransson, however.

Though lopsided, the match was not without its moments of drama. Freshman Lynn Chi was pushed into a third set for the second match in a row and pulled off a late victory. Her win gave Cal its fourth point and sealed the victory for the Bears.

Junior Anett Schutting was also pushed into a third set. After winning her first set but dropping her second, Schutting found herself to be the last Bear standing as she faced San Diego State’s Julia Wais.

When she finally won the third set, 6-2, the match was over, and Cal had a 6-1 victory.

Klara Fabikova, Tayler Davis and Tami Nguyen all won their matches in straight sets for the Bears. Cal took two of the three doubles matches to clinch the doubles point.

The advantage for the Bears in the nearly four-hour match was their endurance. Whenever a match lasted for a while or went into a third set, Cal was able to capitalize.

“There is no time element in tennis, so you have to be able to stay out there as long as you need to in order to win the match,” Augustus said. “Generally when you play other top teams, the matches are close, they last three sets.”

This preparation for long matches is mental as well as physical.

“You know you can make any adjustments if needed,” Augustus said, “in case you start out slow or the girl comes out and plays tough against you.”

Against San Diego State, those preparations came into use as the Bears found themselves up against an aggressive team that wasn’t going to go down without a fight. The Aztecs consistently played close to the net, and in response, the Bears changed the pace of the match.

Those adjustments that Cal made on each court proved to be key, as the team played better in later sets on almost every court.

“Some matches, you can just try different things and see what works,” Augustus said.

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

The post Capitalizing on endurance, Cal women’s tennis wins third straight appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Nobody could have expected the dominating performance that the team turned in. Cal dropped only three sets in the opening of Pac-12 play as it crushed both Washington State and Washington.

On Friday, Cal (7-4, 2-0 in the Pac-12) made quick work of Washington State (10-4, 0-2), sweeping the doubles matches and winning on five of the six singles courts to finish the match, 6-1. The next day, the Bears looked even more impressive against Washington (8-4, 0-2) en route to a 7-0 sweep.

Anett Schutting, playing on the top court in Susanyi’s absence, defeated Washington State’s Liudmila Vasielieva 6-0, 6-2. Her encore to that performance was a 6-1, 6-1 decimation of Washington’s Andjela Nemcevic the next day, the only ranked player Cal had to face all weekend.

“I think she did such a good job today of taking control of that match and not letting that girl in the match at all,” said Cal coach Amanda Augustus. “You can see the confidence, and she’s starting to feel more comfortable playing on the top court.”

Schutting also was victorious in both of her doubles matches of the weekend, playing on the top court with freshman Lynn Chi.

“We like their chemistry,” Augustus said. “We like the base that they’ve developed so far. Each week, our goal is to just keep adding to their game.”

The weekend also featured senior Annie Goransson’s return to singles. Though still recovering from a back injury, Goransson looked to be near 100 percent when she won both of her matches on the sixth court easily.

“Being out playing again is just such a reward for all the hard work I’ve put in and people around me have helped me with,” said Goransson.

Cal’s other senior — Tayler Davis — also played well. She has quietly put together a singles record of 6-1 this season, mostly on the fourth court.

The only match Cal lost was when Alice Duranteau played Washington State’s Olga Musilovich on the fifth court. In one of the most intense matches that Hellman Tennis Complex has seen over the last few weeks, Duranteau was able to win the second set and push the match into a tie-breaker. After a few balls hit the net, the long match was over, and Musilovich emerged victorious.

“It’s very different being the last Bear standing,” Duranteau said. “The match was already over, but my team was so supportive that I was just trying to get through that match and keep fighting as hard as I could.”

Even with all of Cal’s great performances, the team always sees areas to improve.

“For a tennis player, it’s never perfect — you always want to do a little bit better,” Augustus said. “To get our first conference win under our belts back on our home courts, I thought they did a good job today.”

Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at jchua@dailycal.org.

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But when the team travels to Taube Tennis Center on Friday, the No. 9 Bears (4-3) will be in the unfamiliar position of being the favorite over the Cardinal, who sit one place outside the top 25, in the annual Big Slam.

Before that action can take place, the Bears have a match against Sacramento State on Friday at 1:30 p.m. in Berkeley. Barring a major upset, Sacramento State (1-5) should not provide too much of a challenge for Cal’s team, which now features two players ranked in the top 10.

After a strong performance against USC last Saturday, junior Anett Schutting was able to jump to No. 8 in the rankings. Zsofi Susanyi, previously the top-ranked player in the country, dropped to No. 5 after injuries prevented her from playing singles last weekend. Susanyi is still day-to-day, as the coaching staff doesn’t want to push her too hard just for a win early in the season.

“The goal for Zsofi is for when she comes back in for her to be back in the rest of the way,” Cal coach Amanda Augustus said. “We don’t want to overpush it for one match in March when we need her full strength going forward into the rest of the spring.”

While it’s unsure whether Susanyi will come back, the Bears should benefit from the probable return of senior Annie Goransson, who has been out so far this season with a back injury. Goransson usually played on the fourth or fifth court for Cal last season, and her return will expand Cal’s depth.

“Annie’s been doing really well and has been working really hard,” said Augustus. “Hopefully we see her in action this weekend.”

Even without Goransson or Susanyi, the Cal squad has already proved this year that it can win despite injuries after beating USC last weekend without either of them.

And Cal has proven that it can beat teams that Stanford cannot.

So far this year, Stanford and Cal have had one opponent in common – Saint Mary’s. The Bears crushed Saint Mary’s 7-0 in January, while the Cardinal lost to them 4-3 in February.

Despite these good indicators, the Bears are not overconfident.

“Stanford’s loss to Saint Mary’s at home was a bit of a surprise,” said Augustus, “but I think when something like that happens, it probably inspired them to work hard and get back on track.”

Amanda Augustus knows that no matter what the rankings say, Stanford will be a tough opponent, and the match may very well come down to who wins the doubles point.

“The doubles point will be key to beating Stanford this weekend,” she said. “I think we’re a stronger overall team in doubles than they are this year.”

Last year, the Bears lost both games to Stanford, including a 4-3 loss in the last match of the regular season for Cal.

While the players and coaches are treating the game against Cal’s Bay Area rival like any other tough game, Zsofi Susanyi did admit that the team does have one tradition before playing the Cardinal.

“The freshmen are baking brownies,” she said, laughing. “Just for the Stanford match, we bake brownies.”

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

The post In unfamiliar territory, Cal women’s tennis is favored to win over Stanford appeared first on The Daily Californian.

For Cal fans at Hellman Tennis Complex, the injury was like a nightmare.

Everyone on the Cal roster got bumped up a court to make up for Susanyi’s absence, facing tougher opponents than usual. Despite sweeping the doubles point against the Bruins, the injury-hampered Bears (4-3) fell, 4-3.

The story started the same against USC (8-2) the next day. Susanyi played her doubles set with freshman Klara Fabikova, but Cal coach Amanda Augustus decided to pull her out before singles once again.

After the Trojans swept the Bears in doubles, it seemed like the ending would be the same as Friday.

But the unexpected happened. Five Bears pulled off victories to give No. 7 Cal a huge 5-2 win over the No. 6 Trojans.

USC’s Sabrina Santamaria, who shares the top spot with Susanyi, also did not play during singles due to a slight injury. Whatever USC’s injury situation, this win was still important for Cal’s confidence.

“This was a really crucial victory for us just emotionally and mentally for the team,” Augustus said. “It will keep us working hard to get better and better each week.”

The first point for the Bears came when freshman Lynn Chi, who played well against UCLA, had another impressive performance and knocked off USC’s Giuliana Olmos, 6-4, 6-0, in her first weekend on the second court.

“I was definitely really nervous at the beginning,” said Chi. “But I think after yesterday’s match, I got a little more confidence because I felt like I really could play on court two.”

Tayler Davis pulled off a comeback victory on the fourth court, as did Alice Duranteau on the sixth. When Klara Fabikova wrapped up her match on court three in the third set, it gave Cal their fourth point and the assured victory.

Now the only people still playing tennis were Cal’s No. 12 Anett Schutting and USC’s No. 3 Danielle Lao.

With the Bears already assured a win, it would have been easy for Schutting to let up, but this match was important to her as she had struggled just the day before against UCLA, losing to No. 6 Robin Anderson 6-1, 6-0.

In a back-and-forth match, Schutting finally prevailed against Lao in three sets, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. Schutting attributes the change in her play from Friday to Saturday to her mental focus.

“I think I wanted to win today more than I did yesterday,” Schutting said. “I felt great today, physically, mentally, everything, and I was ready to compete.”

In a weekend where Cal’s top player was limited due to injury, several other players showed that the Bears have the talent and depth to compete with tennis’ top teams.

“The more adverse conditions the better,” said Augustus. “It trains you mentally. And I think when you get to the end of the season, it’s the mentally tougher team that wins.”

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

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