Coming into the Pac-12 a few years ago, the Utah women’s tennis team knew the level of competition would be high. This was evident this past weekend as the Utes dropped a match to No. 5 UCLA 6-1 and another match to No. 7 USC 7-0.
“The Pac-12 is the best conference in women’s tennis,” said head coach Mat Iandolo. “It is stacked from top to bottom, especially those four California schools. Not all of them are up there right now, but by the end of the season they will all be ranked in the top seven in the nation.”
The Utes were able to salvage a couple of victories in the first contest against UCLA. Although they dropped the doubles point, losing two out of three matches, Elena Najera-Salas and Natasha Smith managed to pull off an upset over UCLA’s No. 28-ranked duo of Pamela Montez and Courtney Dolehide by a score of 8-5.
In singles play, the Utes struggled to keep pace with UCLA’s firepower. With almost every UCLA player boasting a national ranking, points were hard to come by for the Utes. The lone point for the day came from Sarah Pham, who registered a three-set upset of No. 86 Montez. While getting a win has to boost one’s confidence, Pham could not fully enjoy the victory.
“I think it was a bittersweet situation for me,” Pham said. “I was stoked to have beaten a great player from UCLA, but at the same time, it was hard to see the loss of my teammates. My win definitely would have been greater if I could have shared it with the rest of my teammates.”
Utah had to travel the next day to Marks Stadium to go against another great squad in USC. The loss to UCLA seemed like a nail-biter compared to the drubbing the Trojans put on the Utes. Utah didn’t win a single match against USC.
“They [USC] are the best team in the nation,” Iandolo said. “They may not be ranked number one, but they can very well win the national championship. It is all about mental toughness, and that is really exposed when you play against good teams. There are always windows of opportunity, but very few against great teams, and we weren’t ready to jump through them.”
While this weekend wasn’t one to remember for the Utes, they are looking forward to the rest of the conference.
“It has been a pretty rough weekend, but we have gained some positive perspective for the rest of the season,” Pham said. “This weekend was an eye opener and has helped our team realize what we need to work on to become a better team.”
Utah will travel back to California this weekend to take on Stanford and California.