Over the weekend, No. 27 Stanford women’s tennis had a difficult 4-3 home loss to No. 35 Cal. Stanford’s number one single player Valerie Glozman won her match against Mao Mushika 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 while Stanford’s number two singles player Connie Ma won her match against Jessica Alsola 6-2, 6-2. Stanford’s number four singles player Caroline Driscoll also won her match against Berta Passola Folch 6-3, 7-6. Cal improves to 7-4 overall and 3-0 in the ACC (now 4-0 after defeating SMU on Sunday) while Stanford falls to 10-3 overall and 3-1 in the ACC.
It was an intense day of tennis on The Farm with a large crowd to cheer on both teams. Cal found an extra gear that Stanford didn’t have. What hurt Stanford was they were missing a couple of their top players due to injury, but even so, Cal still deserves a lot of credit for finding a way to pull out the victory.
“Well, I think our message is we’ve had a really good run,” Stanford head coach Frankie Brennan said after the match. “I mean, we’ve been on a winning streak. I don’t really count the matches. We’ve had a great winning streak going, especially at home. A rivalry match, we don’t like to have excuses. We’re going into finals, so we gotta make sure we’re focused in these moments. But this is a real traditional Cal-Stanford battle.
“So, I’m proud of our fight. You know, there’s no clock in our sport, right? There’s no clock. So, when it’s over, it’s over. You gotta win the last point. So my feeling is always like let’s be there to the last minutes. Let’s not get blown out 4-0. This is a 4-3 for us, you know? So I was really proud of the fight.
“We’re undermanned this year for sure. You know, we’ve got a lot of injuries, our top players, two of our top players are both injured. So, we’ve got people who are walk ons. Morgan, you know, at number six there is a walk on. She hasn’t been in this situation. She’s not a scholarship player. She’s a freshman. So, her first big battle. So I’m really proud of her fighting and keeping it close, but as you can see, it takes some intestinal fortitude and it takes, as you would know, match toughness, right? And just a little more of that. So I’m really proud of what they did and they’ll learn from it. We’ll get better for it.”
As for Cal, number three singles player Lan Mi won her match against Valencia Xu 6-2, 7-6 while number five singles player Naomi Xu won her match against Chidimma Okpara 6-3, 6-1. And then Sophie Hernandez also defeated Morgan Shaffer 6-4, 7-5.
“She’s been really committed to what we’re doing,” Brennan said of Okpara. “She still has some rust coming off because she didn’t play much for us last year. I needed her. I needed her to step up and be committed. So I gave her a scholarship. We had an extra scholarship, I gave her a scholarship and she has earned that scholarship every step of the way. She works really hard. She’s getting better every day. She and Morgan Shaffer at three doubles have been outstanding. I mean, they have something going on there where they really gel.
“So she’s brought a lot of that to us and a leadership. Maybe seeing her brother on the basketball court got her inspired to say you know what, I wanna start, too. So when she got that scholarship, she showed a renewed commitment to our program, to her tennis, and she is getting better every day.
“I told her this earlier, just like I said to you about the other group, we will not get to her potential by the end of the season. She’s got more in her. That’s a good thing because that’s how good she can be as we go forward here.”
What broke the tie was the doubles as the Bears took the point there thanks to wins from Jessica Alsola/Mao Mushika & Berta Passola Folch/Naomi Xu.
“Today, we weren’t great in doubles,” Brennan said. “We came out very flat and that’s important to us. When you’re injured, you’ve got to get that doubles point and get up one love and just be like okay, there are three singles wins here. We always feel like there’s six singles wins, but hoping there’s three singles wins there.”
Of course, Connie Ma was one of the top performers for Stanford in this one. The senior has been so steady for Stanford and that came through again with the way she won her match.
“I mean Jess, I’ve played her before many times,” Ma said of her match. “And you know, I think going into this match I know she’s a very aggressive player, so I knew I needed to kind of be a little more aggressive myself and kind of, you know, start the point on my terms as much as I could and I think I was, you know hitting my targets pretty well, kind of moving her around, and then coming into the net, mixing it up. So I think that was going pretty well for me today.”
“You know, she’s unbelievable,” Brennan said of Ma. “I mean, the kid is so in tune with her game and her opponent. She’s played Jess from Cal a bunch of times. She’s just someone that I can put on the court, I feel like. And she can just go. I can stop by on changeovers maybe help her here and there with some things I’m seeing, but she’s very in tune with her game.
“So to be a leader, I can’t remember, this might be her fifth or sixth time she’s been the first one off the court and set the tone. And lately she’s been winning the doubles point. So she’s given us a 2-0 lead. This time she gets us back to one right away. Which sends a good message, you know, so she’s just been unbelievable in that position and that’s what you want from a senior leader like her. Captain, you know, everything else.”
Just like the men’s tennis team, Stanford women’s tennis is thrilled to be playing in a brand new facility. While they wait for the outdoor facility to finish, they’re already getting an opportunity to experience the new indoor courts.
“I mean, this is a phenomenal facility,” Brennan said. “We’re so thankful to the university, to Bernard Muir our athletic director, who is obviously on his way out. But just all their commitment to Stanford tennis and building a facility like this for us so we can be in weather conditions, you know, its’ they’re still figuring it out, it still lets some rain in, but at least we’re getting matches in and then of course the facility across the street is going to be cutting edge. Locker rooms, everything. So we’re really excited for that.
“Hopefully that’ll be December of ’25 that will get done and we’ll be back over there. But for right now, we have two more home matches at the end of the season, so you know, that’ll be it for us in here, but it’s a great place to practice and if you look at it, it’s a great environment. The fans really feel like they’re a part of what’s going on, which is really cool.”
Up next for Stanford is a four-match ACC road trip to the states of Virginia and Florida. The first match of that trip will at Virginia Tech on Friday, March 21st t 9:00 AM PT followed by Virginia on Sunday, March 23rd. Then, they’ll play at Miami and at Florida State the following weekend.
CardinalSportsReport.com on Facebook, IG, Threads, X (Twitter), & Blue Sky: @StanfordRivals
Ben Parker on Facebook, IG, Threads, X (Twitter), YouTube, & Blue Sky: @slamdunk406
Email: slamdunk406@yahoo.com
