Olivia Hauger

A world top-100 doubles ranking, 20 professional tournament wins and all four Grand Slams later, she continues her tennis career as Cal women’s tennis head coach.

Cal sophomore No. 41 Julia Rosenqvist earned the only win for the Bears on Monday, swiftly knocking out UCF’s No. 40 Valeriya Zeleva.

The Bears have split the season series so far with the Trojans, winning in earlier nonconference play at home but dropping the official Pac-12 match on the road.

Cal (12-7, 6-4) lost the first six points of the match before their lone highlight of the day — sophomore Anna Bright (No. 119) and her upset win over Stanford’s Emily Arbuthnott (No. 36) on court four singles.

Ending the regular season with a win is always great. But ending the regular season with a conference win against your biggest rival that also happens to be a top-five team in the country? That would take the cake.

No. 17 Cal women’s tennis (12-6, 6-3) found its second and third consecutive wins in the Pac-12 this weekend.

The Bears are certainly capable of playing at that level, as evidenced by their early season upsets against then-No. 11 Florida and then-No. 7 Pepperdine.

The nice thing about playing in a tough conference is that there is always another opportunity to play top-level competition and earn a quality win. No. 19 Cal women’s tennis (9-5, 3-2) will have that chance this weekend at home against No. 15 Washington (15-1, 5-0) and No. 36 Washington State (17-5, 2-3).

The first conference win is a significant milestone for a Cal team that has legitimate talent and experience pushing elite teams to the brink. The Bears began the season unranked but have blossomed into a unit capable of upsetting anyone on any given day.

The new partnership between Hana Mraz and Rosenqvist (No. 28) was able to take down UCLA’s Gabby Andrews and Ayan Broomfield (No. 8). Just one week earlier, Mraz and Rosenqvist defeated the top-ranked duo in the country at Pepperdine.