BERKELEY – California will open as the No. 2 seed in the Pac-12 Championship on Thursday at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club in Ojai, California. The Golden Bears will take on Wednesday's winner between seventh-seeded Washington and 10th-seeded Colorado.
 
Played in conjunction with the 118th annual Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, the Pac-12 Championship will determine the conference's automatic team qualifier for the NCAA tournament.
 
Cal brings a 15-4 record into the Thursday quarterfinal round, which takes place at the Weil Tennis Academy. The Bears finished with an 8-2 conference record to take second in the Pac-12 after losing, 4-3, to Stanford on Saturday at the Hellman Tennis Complex in Berkeley. The Cardinal captured the tournament's top seed and the Pac-12 regular-season title with its Big Slam victory.
 
The Pac-12 semifinals will take place on Friday, with the Cal-UW/Colorado winner again playing at the Weil courts. Saturday's final will be played at Libbey Park, with the Pac-12 Networks televising the match.
 
For more information on the Pac-12 Championship, please visit this Pac-12 site.
 
Poll Position
Cal was ranked 11th in last week's USTA Top 25 and 16th in last week's Oracle/ITA poll. The new Oracle/ITA Rankings come out on Tuesday, while the USTA will release its new poll on Wednesday.
 
In last week's Oracle/ITA singles polls, junior Karla Popovic was ranked 18th, Manasse was ranked 52nd and sophomore Olivia Hauger was ranked 111th in singles. In doubles, Manasse and Jansen were ranked 31st, and Starr and freshman Alexis Nelson were ranked 74th.
 
Scouting the Bears

• Karla Popovic (36-3 in singles) improved her win streak to nine matches when she defeated Stanford's 23rd-ranked Melissa Lord, 6-4, 6-3, at court-two singles in the recent Big Slam
• Popovic had a better winning streak when she started the season 21-0; she was named Pac-12 Player of the Week on Feb. 27
• Earlier this year, Popovic won the singles title and paired with Olivia Hauger to capture the doubles crown at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships in the fall; the Bears have a 22-6 doubles record
• Last week's Pac-12 Player of the Week Maegan Manasse improved to 14-5 in singles with her 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(4) come-from-behind, upset win over Stanford's 41st-ranked Caroline Doyle in the Big Slam
• Denise Starr, a two-time All-American in doubles, upset Stanford's 53rd-ranked Taylor Davidson, 6-4, 6-4, in the Big Slam to improve to 19-11 in singles
• Olivia Hauger is 25-8 in singles, including 9-3 on court four; her 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 win over Julia Eshet clinched Cal's 4-3 win at Oregon on April 8
• Hauger collected the March 20 Pac-12 Player of the Week accolade for her play in Cal's wins over Arizona and Arizona State
• Jansen, a two-time NCAA champion in doubles, and Manasse improved to 11-4 when they beat Stanford's Emily Arbuthnott and Taylor Davidson, 6-4, on court one in the Big Slam
• In singles, Jansen has a 20-7 record, including 10-1 on court five; she earned the Pac-12 Player of the Week honor on Feb. 13 for her play at the ITA National Women's Team Indoor championship
• Jansen also clinched the April 5, 7-0 victory over Sacramento State with her court-four singles win
• The doubles team of Starr and Alexis Nelson is 6-1
• Sophomore Maria Smith (26-13 in singles) was named the Athletic Study Center Scholar-Athlete of the Week honor for the week of Feb. 6-10
• Cal alumna Amanda Augustus (class of 1999) was named the 2016 Wilson/ITA National Coach of the Year and was a two-time NCAA doubles champion in her playing days in Berkeley; she is in her 10th season as head coach of the Bears
• Zack Warren in in his third year as the Cal women's tennis assistant coach

Manasse, Hauger Swept Singles At 2016 Pac-12s
Last season, when the 2016 Pac-12 Championships consisted of singles and doubles tournaments, Maegan Manasse became just the third Cal player to win the conference singles title and Olivia Hauger won the singles invitational crown at the event in Ojai.
 
The top-seeded Manasse, ranked 11th nationally in singles, posted a dominant 6-3, 6-2 victory over UCLA's third-seeded and 17th-ranked Catherine Harrison, the defending Pac-12 champ. Manasse joined prominent alumnae in Raquel Kops-Jones (2004) and Zsuzsanna Fodor (2006) as conference main-draw singles champions.
 
Hauger defeated Stanford's Caroline Lampl, 6-1, 6-4, earlier in the day for the invitational title.

Next Time
Cal finds out where and when it will be playing in the NCAA team tournament when the NCAA selection show airs on May 2.