Recap: No. 11 Stanford Women’s Tennis falls to No. 17 UCLA and No. 20 USC
This past weekend, No. 11 Stanford women’s tennis fell to No. 20 USC and No. 17 UCLA. On Friday, they fell to USC 3-4 and on Saturday, they fell to UCLA 0-7. It was a rough weekend for the Cardinal as they are now 2-3 on the season.
BOX SCORE: USC at Stanford-Friday, January 30th
BOX SCORE: UCLA at Stanford-Saturday, January 31st
While some 4-3 final scores are the result of teams playing out the matches in full after a team clinches, the 4-3 result against USC was a legit 4-3 as it came down to the final match. USC took the doubles point while splitting with Stanford in the singles 3-3 to win the match 4-3.
“Well, I mean, I think if we’re gonna talk about today, we got to talk about yesterday a little bit,” Stanford head coach Frankie Brennan said after Saturday’s loss. “I mean, I’m really proud of the team and how they fought. I mean, when you’re missing your top two players on a team with injuries, everybody’s a little bit out of position, you know? And so everybody’s got to elevate their game at the right time. So, I thought, I was really proud with the fight yesterday. We came that close to having a Titanic win for this program early in the season. And maybe that took a little bit out of us today. I’m not really sure. I think we’re all searching for answers right now. This is a very good UCLA team, you know? Hats off to them that they played a really good match. But, you know, we’re gonna let our heads hang for a few minutes and then we’ll get back to work.”
In singles, Monika Ekstrand (Stanford) defeated Jana Hossam (USC) 7-5, 6-1; Alyssa Ahn (Stanford) defeated Emma Charney (USC) 6-7 (7-5), 6-4, 6-1; Immi Haddad (USC) defeated Caroline Driscoll (Stanford) 6-7 (7-5), 6-2, 7-5; Eugenia Zozaya (USC) defeated Tianmei Wang (Stanford) 6-3, 6-3; Sein Myoung (Stanford) defeated Krisha Mahendran (USC) 6-2, 6-2; and Dani Borruel (USC) defeated Emma Sun (Stanford) 6-4, 6-3. The match between Haddad and Driscoll was the final match to finish and the one to clinch the win for the Trojans.
As for the UCLA match, the Bruins won the doubles point and all six singles matches. Stanford was unable to claim a single victory in that match. After battling hard against USC, the Cardinal just seemed to run out of gas the next day against the Bruins. With Alexis Blokhina out for the season and Valerie Glozman out indefinitely, the Cardinal don’t have much depth and that seems to be wearing thin on them.
“You know, honestly, I’m a coach who takes responsibility for things,” Brennan said candidly. “If we’re not winning matches, if we’re not performing, I think the blame starts with me a little bit, you know, and I’ve got to maybe figure things out a little bit and get this team trained better. I mean, we all talk about horses in the stable and tennis different because, it’s a mono a mono sport. There isn’t like a game plan to come up with or a strategy like we’re gonna run the ball more in football and then do play action and pass. It’s a little different than that, so I think just individually, we got to get back to work on certain things and I think all of us, we will get better. We always do. Just, I think it’s growing pains right now. You know, I think maybe, as I’ve said before, it’s like, we are an extremely young team. Lots of new players on this team who are still figuring themselves out. So, I’m still optimistic that we’re gonna end up having a great season. We just might take a different path getting there.”
When the team match has already been decided as was the case in the UCLA match, the focus of Brennan is to keep encouraging the players that are still competing. What makes coaching a tennis team interesting is even if the team has lost, you still have individual battles going out there and you want to make sure players that are still competing are giving the resources to give it their all.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s self-motivation number one, right?” Brennan said of how he coaches in those moments. “So this is about you now. The match is over. And then the other part of it is, we want to show a number to the rest of the country. You don’t want to show a 7-0, which unfortunately we did today. You want to show a 4-3. Even though the match may have been decided, you want to show you’re still in every competition eventually at some point. Yesterday was a legit 4-3. There’s legit 4-3s and then there’s 4-3s like it became a 4-3 because the match was decided. That was a legit 4-3.
“So I think it’s just, you know, it’s for them. I mean, Caroline Driscoll had a really tough match yesterday, played a great match. And she wants to win this one. And it’s us trying to figure out the best way to do that for her and to continue to improve and hopefully we get, you know, a little high note as we come off the court at the end of a match, you know, and didn’t work that way today. Came up against a really tough UCLA team. Obviously, they were motivated after losing to Cal 4-3 yesterday and I told the team, it’s like, it’s going to come down to like, who really wants to get it? But honestly, they were really good today. Quite a talented group. They have, UCLA with Stella and Rance, coaches I’ve known forever, friends of mine, they really did a good job.”
On the plus side, Stanford did battle USC hard and it was nice to have Cal State Fullerton transfer Sein Myoung pick up a singles win against a ranked team. If they want to make some noise in the ACC, they’re going to need Myoung to get adjusted to this level of play as quickly as possible. Another positive was seeing former Cardinal standout Connie Ma out there working with some of the players during warmups. She’s back with the team as an assistant coach for the season as she is waiting to begin the next chapter of her life. Having her around is certain to give the team a nice boost.
“It’s great. Connie’s been hired as our third coach for this year,” Brennan said. “She’s obviously had an unbelievable career. She’s going to go to medical school. This is sort of just a four or five month stint for her and we’re just so lucky to have someone with her knowledge and understanding of the game helping us out. You know, this is a player who is a great player, but she was extremely cerebral. And so that makes her a really good coach as well. To put game plans together, see trends, and kind of really be able to tell you what to do. You can see the trust I have in her, you know, letting her have those matches. I’m popping on every court, but I have huge trust in her. Of course, when you’ve been coaching someone as I did with her for four years, I know she knows what to do, you know?”
Up next for Stanford is a home match against Sacramento State on Monday, February 9th at 12:00 PM PT.
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