An upset win over California (9-3) is great news any day, but particularly great for the No. 14 Stanford women’s tennis team (9-1) as it allows the Cardinal to hold momentum going into a three-week break for finals.
The Cardinal won the first point of the day when the No. 27 team of freshmen Mallory Burdette and Stacey Tan won at the No. 2 spot with a score of 8-6. The No. 2 duo of junior Hilary Barte and senior Lindsay Burdette sealed the doubles point with a win of the same score over the No. 13 pair of Mari Andersson and Jana Juricova. Stanford’s sophomore Veronica Li and junior Carolyn McVeigh completed the sweep with a third 8-6 score.
“If you look at the results the last couple of years, there are so many 4-3 scores these days in college tennis,” said Stanford head coach Lele Forood. “Clearly winning the doubles point is significant. They got close in the middle, we were down a break at No. 1 for a while, but we got it together and wound up with all three. That bodes well for us going forward.”
Players on both teams came out tense in the beginning before Stanford pulled it together to move ahead in all matches.
“For doubles, it was a little bit tight, especially at first,” Mallory Burdette said. “We definitely responded to the pressure well today and I feel like we all broke out toward the beginning of the sets to take leads. It felt great to take the doubles point and [it] gave us a lot of confidence.”
Singles proved to be a closer affair at the end, but Stanford was able to keep the early momentum up. No. 28 Mallory Burdette came off first with a 6-0, 6-1 win. Next, No. 9 Barte upset No. 2 Juricova 6-3, 6-3 to put the Cardinal up 3-0.
“I started off really well, but she came back,” Barte said. “It got really tight in the first set, but I just persevered. She didn’t play very well, but that was the story of the whole match.”
Cal mounted a bit of a comeback, winning at the No. 2 and 3 spots in that order to cut the deficit to 3-2. The match came down to the two matches at No. 5 and 6, both developing into three-set battles. Li provided the clincher when she defeated Nelly Radeva 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 to win the day. No. 95 McVeigh made the victory even sweeter by beating out Cal’s Tayler Davis 7-5, 3-6, 6-4.
“Things did get tight in singles, obviously,” Mallory Burdette said. “[Singles spots] five and six went to three sets – we lost at two and three. It was a bit of a nail-biter toward the end, but it was a great day to win.”
The Cardinal will now take a three-week break before coming back on March 21 to take on Cal Poly. Practice involves maintaining the momentum the women have earned from their win over their rivals.
“Right now it’s maintenance,” Forood said. “We need to stay together, keep working out and hope we don’t slip a little during the break.”