No. 35 Stanford men’s tennis (6-1) takes to the road this weekend as the Cardinal travel south to Los Angeles. There, they will square off against No. 12 USC (10-2) and No 15 UCLA (7-3) kicking off their Pac-12 conference play for the season.

Historically, Stanford men’s tennis has struggled when traveling to southern California, failing to beat either of these teams in an away meet since 2010. Through the history of the men’s tennis program, the Cardinal have squared off with USC 127 total times with a match record of 60-67, and have faced UCLA 126 times with a match record of 58-68.

This year, the Cardinal enter their away games on a four-game winning streak, coming off clean 7-0 sweeps of UNLV and Saint Mary’s. Most recently, the Cardinal defeated USF in a 6-1 decision on Wednesday, Feb. 15. They look to carry this momentum forward into their games this weekend.

These matches have an air of revenge to them, as the Stanford men’s tennis team was swept last year by both UCLA and USC, including matches at home. In the postseason, the Cardinal were eliminated by UCLA in the Pac-12 semifinals, and again eliminated by the Bruins in the NCAA Championship Round of 16 in Oklahoma. Having suffered so many defeats at the hands of these Southern California teams, this road trip has a lot of significance to the team as a whole.

The action begins on Friday at 3 p.m. vs. USC, and continues on Saturday at 1 p.m. vs. UCLA.

Contact Bobby Pragada at bpragada ‘at’ stanford.edu.