The No. 11 Stanford women’s tennis team (17-1, 6-0 Pac-10) turned its attention north for a three-game road trip last weekend and returned with wins over Washington State (12-13, 1-6), No. 25 Washington (10-6, 2-5) and Oregon (7-15, 1-7).

Heading into the last weekend of the regular season, the women have only lost one match all season, against UCLA on the road, and are on a 10-match winning streak. This streak has really highlighted Stanford’s strength at the bottom of its lineup, and this strength was put on display all weekend.

The first match took place at Washington State, where the women recorded a 5-2 victory. Stanford swept through the doubles, highlighted by an 8-0 victory at the top spot by the nation’s No. 2 team of junior Hilary Barte and senior Lindsay Burdette. While both experienced a few struggles over the weekend, their doubles play has been as flawless as ever.

Barte dropped only her second match in dual play this season, the first coming against USC’s Maria Sanchez the weekend before. She lost 6-4, 6-0 to unranked Elisabeth Fournier. She says that the loss to Sanchez was still weighing on her mind while she played.

“It was weird,” Barte said. “I was just still thinking about the USC match. It was still annoying me – I was still pretty bothered so mentally I just wasn’t there. It’s obviously really tough to play in those kinds of conditions.”

Burdette also lost a tough three-setter 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 to No. 94 Liudmila Vasilieva, but the rest of the lineup won fairly convincingly. At the No. 3, 5 and 6 spots, Stanford dropped a combined four games. In the four spot, Stacey Tan came back from a set down to defeat Andjela Kankaras 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Next, No. 25 Washington proved to be the closest match the Cardinal has faced all year. Stanford edged the Huskies in the end 4-3, but only after losing the first set in every single match except Mallory Burdette’s. She and Stacey Tan lost at No. 2 doubles, but Stanford pulled out the doubles point with wins at spots one and three. Once singles came, it was an all-out brawl for the victory. Mallory Burdette pulled out the only straight-sets win despite being down initially in the first set.

“I started to focus on my court more and so I took care of business in my match,” Mallory Burdette said. “But as I got done and started looking around, everyone had lost their first sets. They just all started to turn it around. Everyone played super well and it showed that even when we’re getting beaten, the other person is having to play really well and it’s hard to keep that up.”

With the doubles point already in their pocket, the women needed to tough out three more wins to have the day. Mallory swept through her opponent 6-4, 6-2 to be first off the court. Barte was the next to finish, turning her play around to defeat her opponent No. 17 Venise Chan 2-6, 6-3, 6-1. With Stanford up 3-0, Veronica Li lost in straight sets 7-6 (5), 6-1 to give Washington its first point. Just afterward, Tan closed out the match with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 performance to clinch.

“It was probably one of my favorite matches of the year,” Barte said. “We needed to be feisty and of course they were trying to protect their home court. In my match, when I lost the first set, I just decided it was a new day. I stormed back in the second set and, once we split sets, I knew it was really close so I had to pull my match out.”

After surviving a scare, Stanford routed Oregon 7-0 to finish off the weekend. The Cardinal won all the doubles and singles matches in straight sets, with the closest match coming at No. 2 doubles as Mallory Burdette and Tan won 8-7 (7-4). No Cardinal player lost more than four games in a singles match. The team’s motivation for the match came from the imminent arrival back on the Farm.

“We were all pretty tired by the time Oregon came around,” Barte said. “Our motto for Oregon was that we could smell home so get up for [the match] and win and it energized us in that way.”

“We were all tired – it was the last match of the series and we were ready to get home,” Mallory Burdette added. “A 7-0 sounds great, but usually that doesn’t happen so it was cool to go out there and win every match.”

A successful weekend highlighted by Stanford’s closest match yet will be great motivation going into this upcoming weekend, as senior captain Lindsay Burdette plays her last match against Cal on Senior Night.