New season, new coach and a strong start.<\/p>\n
The Cal women\u2019s tennis fall season started in full swing at ITA All-American Championships in Cary, North Carolina, with three Bears traveling to the East Coast under new head coach Maggie Kane\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
Senior Mao Mushika reached the singles round of 32 in the main draw and the consolation round of 16. She entered directly into the main draw with an impressive preseason No. 51 ITA singles ranking.<\/p>\n
Mushika also teamed up with junior Naomi Xu, advancing from prequalifying rounds all the way to the main draw, reaching the doubles round of 32. This was the pair\u2019s first tournament together as a doubles team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was excited to see them play together because I know that they have really strong doubles skills overall and a very high doubles IQ in terms of playing smart and having a lot of shots,\u201d Kane said.<\/p>\n
But the pair\u2019s partnership wasn\u2019t Cal\u2019s only debut in Cary.<\/p>\n
Freshman Nika Hurkacz made her collegiate debut with a win over Michigan State\u2019s Ellie Blackford. Hurkacz played five matches, reaching the first qualifying round and winning her qualifying consolation match.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe All American Tournament is always a really strong tournament,\u201d Kane said. \u201cAll the best players in college are competing there, so it was really great to see our team right away playing in that environment with really tough competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Bears head back to the West Coast, Cal women\u2019s tennis is preparing for an exciting weekend ahead.<\/p>\n
Xu and Hurkacz will compete again, alongside sophomores Laura Cilekova and Mille Johanna Moerk at the Battle in the Bay Classic at San Francisco\u2019s California Tennis Club.<\/p>\n
Running Oct. 1-4, the tournament features some of the country\u2019s top tennis programs and represents another opportunity for the Bears to prepare ahead of the NCAA Individual Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the goal is to qualify for NCAA individuals. That\u2019s a great achievement.\u201d Kane said. \u201cBut how we do that is just to try to get as many quality matches as we can \u2026 and to try to translate things that they\u2019ve been working on in practice into matches and keep developing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the rest of the fall season, a new coaching staff means new possibilities for the Bears.<\/p>\n
Kane\u2019s staff will focus on exploring and testing each player\u2019s potential ahead of the NCAAs in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the fall, we want to see a lot of different pairings in tournaments and in practice as well to help us prepare,\u201d Kane said. \u201cAs a new coaching staff, we just want to see the possibilities \u2026 we just want to see all of the possibilities for spring coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New season, new coach and a strong start. The Cal women\u2019s tennis fall season started in full swing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[316032,49,138245,316034,48,131817,316027,316030,316028,138257,316031,138255,316033,316029,22865,82,593],"class_list":["post-916606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-battle-in-the-bay-classic","tag-ca","tag-cal-womens-tennis","tag-california-tennis-club","tag-canada","tag-cary","tag-ita-all-american-championships","tag-laura-cilekova","tag-maggie-kane","tag-mao-mushika","tag-mille-johanna-moerk","tag-naomi-xu","tag-ncaa-individual-championships","tag-nika-hurkacz","tag-north-carolina","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}