Graig MantleThey sparred with some of the best competition the country – and in one case, the world – had to offer in the fall, and now, the Cal Poly women’s tennis team will look to build upon that success, starting at home.
The Mustangs, led by the sophomore duo of Brittany Blalock and Steffi Wong, host Santa Clara at 10 a.m. and then UC Santa Cruz at 2 p.m. Sunday at Mustang Courts in their first action of the spring season.
“It’s not something you do a lot during the regular season,” Cal Poly head coach Hugh Bream said of scheduling the doubleheader. “It’s normally something you do a lot of in the fall and tournaments where you might be playing two doubles matches and two singles matches the same day, as many as three or four days in a row.”
Santa Clara in particular, Bream said, poses an introductory challenge for the Mustangs, whose top doubles team, Blalock and Wong, is currently No. 3 in the Northwest Region, ahead of Cal’s and Stanford’s best doubles combinations.
A season ago, the meeting between Santa Clara and Cal Poly came under a rain delay and didn’t finish.
“We’re expecting both (Santa Clara and UC Santa Cruz) to come out and play us tough,” Bream said. “Santa Clara we’ve always had really close matches with, and it’s a great rivalry.”
The Banana Slugs, a nationally ranked Division III team, should provide “an opportunity for some players to play two singles and two doubles the same day, and for everybody a chance to start,” Bream added.
In spite of all the fall success, Blalock feels the Mustangs can better their overall performance.
“We’re going to jump up many levels,” Blalock said, adding that she would like to maintain a high level of consistency in order to contribute to the team’s goal of winning a Big West Conference championship.
Blalock and Wong could indeed improve upon their “outstanding” falls, Bream said.
“As far as what they can improve, I think consistency day-to-day, continuing to improve first-serve percentage, their aggressiveness at the net and the ability to get return serves in play in a strong spot, point after point,” he said.
In the fall, Blalock and Wong boasted a number of impressive wins on their way to a 9-3 mark.
At the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championships spanning from Sept. 30 to Oct. 7, the pairing made it to the third round of qualifying competition. In the tournament’s pre-qualifying round they edged its top seed, Georgia Tech, featuring 23rd-ranked singles player Kristen Flower, 8-6.
In the second round of qualifying play, Blalock and Wong came up with an 8-3 rout of then-No. 14 Texas Christian’s Anna Sydorska and Macall Harkins.
The round’s No. 1 seed, USC’s Amanda Fink and Gabrielle Niculescu, held off the Mustangs twosome, 8-6.
Blalock (7-2), who enters the campaign as the region’s No. 15 singles player, concluded her individual fall season by losing 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 at the Cal Poly Open on Nov. 18 to Brazil’s Ana Clara, then No. 46 in the world amongst junior singles players, and 418th overall.
Wong (6-3) comes into the spring as the 30th-ranked singles player in the region.
Cal Poly’s Shannon Brady and Amy Markhoff (2-1), meanwhile, enter the season ranked 13th in the region in doubles.
After their opening matches, the Mustangs will travel to Pepperdine for a 1 p.m. start Jan. 20.