Since a majority of the Cal women's tennis team did not get the opportunity to play in the ITA All-American Tournament in Pacific Palisades, Calif. last weekend, four of those remaining players will get the opportunity for tournament play this weekend in the St. Mary's Invitational in Moraga, Calif.

Beginning today, freshmen Jana Juricova, Stephany Chang and Catalina Visico, and sophomore Rachael Dillon, will compete at the Korth Tennis Complex in singles and doubles draws, as well as in a back-draw if they are eliminated.

The other teams participating in this competition include Stanford, Washington, Portland, Gonzaga, San Francisco, Santa Clara and UC Davis. Some ranked players that the Bears will be facing are No. 4 Hilary Barte and No. 13 Jessica Nguyen of Stanford, No. 21 Katrina Zheltova of Sacramento State, and Washington's No. 28 Venise Chan.

Cal coach Amanda Augustus appears to have a clear-cut goal for this weekend-as much competition as possible.

"The St. Mary's Tournament has a similar format to the tournament we played at home two weeks ago," Augustus said. "We are looking to get a lot of matches in this weekend."

It is merely another opportunity for the Bears to improve before the team-oriented season begins in the spring.

"The players playing this weekend haven't played in a while, so we have been working on some things in practice," Augustus said. "We have done lots of doubles practice and have been working on a lot of serving too. I am interested to see if the placement of our serves end up being better than in our first tournament."

Dillon also stressed that this weekend is largely geared towards individual improvement.

"This tournament consists of lots of matches over a three-day period," Dillon said. "It is great practice to get ready for the spring season, and it's very exciting to play because I'd rather be playing matches than practicing."

Still, Cal has oriented its recent practices towards preparation for tournaments such as this weekend's Invitational, rather than the normal spring practice regimen.

"This week in practice has been more about working on tactics than rather than drilling," Dillon said. "We just played lots of sets and competed during practice instead of working on specific shots. They are mainly point-based to get ready for the tournaments."

Also providing the Bears with the determination to strive high in this tournament was sophomore Marina Cossou's performance in the All-American.

"Marina did a great job last weekend, and everyone was delighted for her, and it definitely pumped us up for this tournament," Dillon said. That should help Augustus and the team in their goal of incremental improvements, week by week.

"I think we should do well in this event, and it is just a good opportunity having different players on the team play common opponents," Augustus said. "I am excited to see how everyone's going to end up doing."

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