Fresh off claiming the title at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va., this past weekend, the women’s tennis team looks to keep the momentum rolling with matches against two Pac-10 rivals, the Oregon Ducks and the Washington State Cougars, this weekend.
Not only will Stanford (9-0) have the opportunity to continue its undefeated season, but it will also have the chance to increase its home winning streak of 169 consecutive victories on the Farm, an NCAA record.
After a 4-0 sweep of No. 16 Arkansas in the first round of the ITA tournament last week, the No. 1 Cardinal went on to defeat No. 5 Michigan 4-1 the next day. In the semifinals, the team zoomed past No. 3 North Carolina, setting up a much-anticipated final between the Cardinal and No. 2 Florida, who Stanford beat 4-3 in the NCAA finals last year. Sophomore Stacey Tan clinched a hard-fought three-set match, propelling Stanford to the championship by the score of 4-2 last Monday.
“I was so inspired watching all my teammates fight for each point of the match,” Tan said. “That really helped me work that much harder to do my best in my match. The victory was a great confidence builder for our team moving forward.”
It’s back to the grind now for Stanford, as the eight players who traveled to Virginia arrived back on campus Tuesday after hours of waiting due to delays and canceled flights on the East Coast. Sophomore Mallory Burdette, who played in the No. 2 slot over the weekend, described the 30-plus hour journey back to Stanford as “a break to catch up on work, but now we have returned and are focusing on upcoming matches.
“We usually focus on ourselves as opposed to worrying about who we are playing,” Burdette continued. “Preparation for this weekend will be like any other. We only lost the doubles point one day, but we will definitely go back to the drawing board with doubles and hopefully tune our singles play up. I think that we have played a lot of tennis over the past week, so it’s important to remain physically healthy as well.”
This is especially true for Burdette, who was out for the first three matches of this season. Since returning to the court just a few weeks ago, she has improved steadily and this weekend marked her first time playing at No. 2 for the Cardinal this season.
“Although I was a little nervous,” Burdette said, “having three solid performances was a huge step forward for me confidence-wise going into this weekend.”
She also hopes that Stanford can capitalize off the fact that Oregon and Washington State both practice indoors, yet will be forced to play outside in the matches this weekend on the Farm. Wind frequently becomes a factor when players aren’t used to compensating for it.
The Ducks have a 6-2 record entering conference play, although they have yet to beat a ranked opponent and lost to No. 24 Oklahoma and No. 73 Minnesota earlier in the year. But they have won two straight matches and have gotten big performances from their freshmen. As always, Oregon will be a tough Pac-10 opponent that Stanford cannot afford to underestimate.
Likewise, the Cougars are sitting pretty at 8-2 in non-conference matches, but recently lost a close match to No. 44 Boise State and have just one win over a ranked opponent, an upset of No. 73 BYU in Utah. They went on a five-game win streak to open the season at home, but are 3-2 in their last five matches. More pressingly, they will be playing their third match in three days—including two against top-five opponents—when they arrive at the Farm on Saturday.
The match against Oregon is slated for today at 1:30 p.m. with the second match against Washington State scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. With rain (and potentially the first snow in the Bay Area in decades) in the forecast, both matches at the Taube Family Tennis Center are subject to delays and postponement.