BERKELEY – This week the California women's tennis team will send four Golden Bears to the ITA National Fall Championships in San Diego and send five Bears to the ASU Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, Arizona, as the fall half of the 2023-24 season comes to a close.
 
The four heading to San Diego – the national tournament is scheduled to start Wednesday and end Sunday – are Jessica Alsola, Mao Mushika, Hannah Viller Moeller and Katja Wiersholm. The pair of Viller Moeller and Mushika along with the team of Alsola and Wiersholm qualified for the doubles field at fall nationals by reaching the final of the ITA Northwest Regional Championships (see below). Viller Moeller also advanced to the singles draw in San Diego by reaching the regional final, while Alsola – who had been the No. 1 alternate for singles at nationals after posting an 8-2 record this fall – moved into the singles draw when another player dropped out.
 
The Tempe event is slated to run from Friday through Sunday, with these Bears playing at the annual ASU event: Cami Brown, Lan Mi, Berta Passola Folch, Tiziana-Marie Schomburg and Makenna Thiel. The latter five competed in the recent Saint Mary's Fall Invitational (see below).
 
The links to the draws for the ITA National Fall Championships will be posted on this page closer to the start of the tournament. The ASU Thunderbird Invite draws will be linked here.

Last Year At Fall Nationals/Thunderbird Invite
Jessica Alsola and Katja Wiersholm reached a second consecutive doubles final, but this time a victory wasn't to be as the Cal duo fell to an Arizona State pair in the consolation title match at the ITA National Fall Championships on Nov. 6 in San Diego. On the last day of the first half of the season, the five Bears competing at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational wrapped up play in Tempe as well, with Hannah Viller Moeller winning in singles to run her record in Tempe to 3-0.
 
In their previous tournament, Wiersholm and Alsola captured the main draw doubles title at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships at Stanford. At fall nationals, the Bears lost to the Sun Devils' Patricija Spaka and Domenika Turkovic, 6-2, 6-3, in the final at the Barnes Tennis Center.
 
Lan Mi Captures Singles Crown In Moraga
Lan Mi won the top-flight singles crown in the Saint Mary's Fall Invitational on Oct. 29 in Moraga, defeating teammate Berta Passola Folch, 7-5, 7-6(2), in the final. The pair of Passola Folch and Makenna Thiel also won the Blue consolation doubles title, beating Sacramento State's Warisara Lee and Mayya Gorbunova, 7-5, in the final.
 
Cal Named Newmark Award Winner
On Oct. 25, the Cal women's tennis team was named a Newmark Award winner in the women's small team category for posting a team grade-point average of 3.704 in 2022-23. Head coach Amanda Augustus' program also posted the top overall GPA among all Cal teams.
 
The Newmark Awards are awarded annually to the teams at Cal with the top cumulative grade-point average during the previous year. They were established in 2007 by Pat and Kent Newmark to honor team academic achievements at Cal and come with a $7,000 stipend that goes into each winning program's operating budget. Kent Newmark competed on the tennis and track & field teams at Cal before graduating in 1960.
 
4 Bears Qualify For Fall Nationals
Cal senior Hannah Viller Moeller closed the ITA Northwest Regional Championships with a flourish when she captured the singles title and – with freshman Mao Mushika – the doubles title Oct. 17 at Stanford's Taube Family Tennis Stadium. The Bears – competing in just their second tournament as a doubles team – defeated teammates Jessica Alsola and Katja Wiersholm in the doubles final, after Viller Moeller dispatched the Cardinal's Connie Ma in singles. All four Bears qualified for the ITA National Fall Championships by reaching the doubles final. Viller Moeller also qualified for fall nationals in singles.
 
Scouting the Bears

• The doubles duo of juniors Jessica Alsola and Katja Wiersholm (5-1 record) is ranked ninth in the ITA preseason poll; last year the pair competed in the NCAA Doubles Championship, falling in the round of 32, and the Bears also reached the consolation doubles semifinals of the 2022 ITA All-American
• Wiersholm and Alsola ended last season with a No. 18 ranking and a 16-14 record
• Alsola has had a tremendous fall half of this season in singles as well as doubles, advancing through the qualifying rounds to the singles main draw of the ITA All-American Championships, in which she ultimately reached the quarterfinals, and also reaching the singles round of 16 in the ITA Northwest Regional Championships
• Alsola – who had a 29-6 singles record last year and is 8-2 this year – is ranked 47th in singles, while Wiersholm (9-1 this year, 18-9 in 2022-23) is ranked 98th in singles
• Wiersholm isn't playing in singles in San Diego, but she's had an impressive start to the season, including winning the top-flight singles title at the Cal Fall Invitational
• Hannah Viller Moeller is 11-1 in singles this season, with her only setback a close loss to Wiersholm in the final of the Cal Fall Invite
• The doubles pair of Viller Moeller, a senior, and Mushika, a freshman, has a 10-0 record; in their first tournament together, the two Bears won the top-flight doubles title at the Cal Fall Invite
• After winning in Moraga, junior Lan Mi improved her singles record to 11-2; she's also 5-4 in doubles
• Berta Passola Folch, in her second semester in Berkeley, is 8-2 in singles and 7-3 in doubles
• Makenna Thiel, a junior, is 6-3 in singles and 5-3 in doubles
• Senior Cami Brown has records of 5-4 in singles and 6-5 in doubles
• Freshman Tiziana-Marie Schomburg is 5-2 (singles) and 4-2 (doubles)
• Cal Athletics Hall of Famer and two-time NCAA doubles champion Amanda Augustus – the 2021 Pac-12 Coach of the Year and five-time ITA Northwest Region Coach of the Year – is in her 17th year as head coach at her alma mater
• Assistant coach and former Cal men's tennis player Sean Hill is in his second year on the Cal staff

Next Time
Cal opens the dual-match season in January.
 
Stay Posted
For further coverage of the Bears, follow them on Twitter (@CalWomensTennis), Instagram (@CalWomensTennis) and Facebook (/CalWomensTennis/).)