The Stanford No. 10 men’s and No. 7 women’s tennis teams took on UCLA and USC this past weekend; the men’s team played at home at Taube Family Tennis Stadium, while the women’s team traveled to Los Angeles for the matchups.
The women’s team added two more wins to their nine-game streak, grabbing 4-3 wins over the No. 11 Bruins on Friday and No. 16 Trojans on Saturday. The men’s team, however, took back-to-back losses, falling to the No. 19 Bruins 2-4 and No. 12 Trojans 1-4.
After falling behind the Bruins 0-2 on Friday, the women’s team surged back. Senior No. 47 Melissa Lord led the comeback with a victory over UCLA’s top singles player in No. 18 Elysia Bolton (6-4, 6-3), while senior No. 58 Caroline Lampl took down Ayan Broomfield (6-2, 6-2) in her 14th-straight win. Junior No. 17 Emily Arbuthnott provided the clincher — her fifth of the season — with a match-sealing three-set win over Alaina Miller (6-3, 3-6, 6-3).
On Saturday, the women’s team snapped the Trojans’ nine-game winning streak in a three-and-a-half-hour marathon match that came down to the wire. Lord was first off the courts with a quick takedown of No. 75 Angela Kulikov (6-2, 6-2), putting the Cardinal up 1-0. No. 28 Michaela Gordon grabbed her first win of the weekend over No. 49 Salma Ewing (6-3, 6-4) before the team suffered back-to-back singles losses, tying up the score at 2-2. Extending the longest winning streak of her career to 15-straight victories, Lampl clinched the match with a clutch tiebreak triumph over Rianna Valdes (3-6, 6-3, 7-6[4]), erasing an early deficit to snatch the Cardinal’s ninth-straight win.
Meanwhile, the men’s team suffered back-to-back losses at the hands of the Bruins and Trojans at home for the first time since April 2017. UCLA hit the ground running, surging forward to a 3-0 lead before the Cardinal got on the board. Sophomore Timothy Sah grabbed Stanford’s first win, defeating Mathew Tsolakyan (6-2, 7-5), and senior captain No. 61 Sameer Kumar took the team’s second and final win with a victory over Patrick Zahraj (6-3, 6-3).
Looking to bounce back after the tough loss Friday, the Cardinal headed to Taube Saturday hoping to complete the season sweep of the Trojans. The match was tightly contested throughout, with five matches going into tiebreak. USC took all but one of those matches, winning its third-straight match of the season 4-1.
The Stanford women’s team heads back to campus this weekend for dual matches against Washington State on Friday and Washington on Saturday. The men’s team will play one more match at home in a dual match against Cal Poly on Thursday before heading to Salt Lake City to take on Utah on Sunday.
Contact Shan Reddy at rsreddy ‘at’ stanford.edu.