The 19th-ranked California women's tennis team continues its run in the NCAA Championship when it travels to face top-seeded and top-ranked Georgia in the super regional round on Friday at 1 p.m. PT at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. Friday's winner advances to the quarterfinals at Baylor, which will host the remainder of the NCAA Championship from May 15-18 in Waco, Texas.
 
NCAA Championship Super Regionals
No. 19 Cal (15-8) vs. [1] No. 1 Georgia (25-3)
1 p.m. PT, Friday, May 9
Dan Magill Tennis Center, Athens, Georgia
Live Stream / Live Stats
Cracked Racquets CrossCourt Cast
 
The 15-8 Golden Bears bring a 7-4 road record to Athens, Georgia, where the Bulldogs – the 2024 NCAA runners-up – are 12-1. This is a rematch of last season's super regional in Athens, where the then-No. 10 Bears rallied from a 3-0 deficit to pull within one of the No. 7 Bulldogs at 3-2. The hosts went on to prevail 4-2.
 
The Bears shut out their first two opponents of this postseason 4-0 in results over Sacramento State and 16th-seeded Washington in Seattle. In the first round against the Hornets last Friday, Lan Mi paired with Greta Greco Lucchina to clinch the doubles point with a 6-4 win over Lou Baudouin and Emilija Praynte. Mi later bested Praynte in singles 6-4, 6-1 to clinch the overall victory. Mi and Greco Lucchina also clinched the doubles point Saturday against the Huskies, defeating McKenna Koenig and Carina Syrtveit 6-4, before Mi's 6-2, 6-2 win over Alexia Jacobs sent the Bears to the super regional.
 
Cal also played Sacramento State in the same round of the NCAA Championship last season, when the Bears likewise defeated Sacramento State 4-0, though that match took place in Berkeley.
 
Poll Position
Cal earned a No. 19 ranking in last week's ITA Tennis team poll and also collected six individual rankings. In singles, Mao Mushika (18-12) is ranked 32nd, senior Lan Mi (25-7) is 44th, Jessica Alsola (20-11) is 59th and senior Katja Wiersholm (9-6) is 79th. The doubles pair of Alsola and Mushika (15-4) is ranked fourth, while Mushika and Wiersholm are ranked 38th (2-0).
 
Fifteen fellow ACC teams joined Cal in last week's ITA rankings, including No. 5 North Carolina, No. 7 Virginia, No. 8 Duke, No. 11 NC State, No. 23 Notre Dame, No. 25 Stanford, No. 29 Georgia Tech, No. 34 Clemson, No. 37 Wake Forest, No. 50 SMU, No. 52 Miami, No. 58 Syracuse, No. 61 Louisville, No. 64 Florida State and No. 69 Virginia Tech.
 
Bears Lauded At Academic Honors Luncheon
At the annual Athletic Study Center Academic Honors Luncheon on Tuesday on the campus of the University of California, Cal women's tennis earned the Golden Bear Achievement Award as the Cal Athletics team with the highest cumulative grade-point average, and senior Jessica Alsola earned the individual Golden Bear Achievement Award for women's tennis for compiling the team's top GPA.
 
Alsola, Mushika Named To All-ACC Teams
Mao Mushika and Jessica Alsola became the first Golden Bears to earn All-ACC honors April 24, when the conference named Mushika to the singles second team and tabbed Alsola for the singles third team. The duo was also named to the All-ACC Second Team in doubles.
 
Mushika has had an outstanding sophomore season that included competing in the NCAA Singles Championship and, with Alsola, in the NCAA Doubles Championship in November. The native of Ichinomiya, Japan, was the first Bear named an ACC Player of the Week in January after posting records of 3-0 in singles and 3-0 in doubles in the Cal Winter Invitational. She combined with Alsola to earn the ACC Doubles Team of the Week accolade in March, when the Bears clinched the doubles points in wins at Virginia and Virginia Tech. Against the Cavaliers, the Cal tandem picked up a critical 7-6(4) win over Melodie Collard and Elaine Chervinsky – the top-ranked duo that won the NCAA doubles title in the fall – in the Bears' 4-1 win. Alsola, from Fresno, earned Cal's second ACC Player of the Week award in March after besting Virginia Tech's 30th-ranked Ozlem Uslu 6-1, 6-4 in the Bears' 6-1 rout of the Hokies and pairing with Mushika to win in doubles at Virginia Tech and Virginia.
 
Cal Reaches ACC Quarterfinals
Playing in its first ACC Championship in Cary, North Carolina, fifth-seeded Cal played its first match in the third round and upended Louisville 4-1 on April 17 to advance to the quarterfinals. Lan Mi and Naomi Xu defeated the Cardinals' Elisabeth lila and Elena Noguero 6-4 to clinch the doubles point. Xu later defeated lila 6-2, 7-6(3) to wrap up the match.
 
In the quarterfinals, Cal faced Virginia for the second time this season. In the first meeting during the regular season, the Bears defeated the then-No. 2 Cavaliers 4-1 in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the April 18 rematch, Cal fell to Virginia 4-0.

Scouting the Golden Bears

• Including its two victories in Seattle, Cal has an 80-42 all-time record in the NCAA Championship
• Cal is one of six ACC teams still competing in the NCAA Championship including Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Stanford and Virginia.
• The Bears' best results in the NCAA team tournament came in 2008 and 2009, when Amanda Augustus – in her first two seasons as head coach – led them to runner-up finishes
• Cal has also won seven NCAA individual championships, including five in doubles (Augustus/Amy Jensen, 1988, 1999; Jensen/Claire Curran, 2000; Christina Fusano/Raquel Atawo, 2003; Mari Andersson/Jana Juricova, 2009) and two in singles (Suzi Babos 2006, Juricova 2011)
• Mao Mushika, Lan Mi, Jessica Alsola and Katja Wiersholm competed in the NCAA individual championships at Baylor last fall
• Wiersholm – who played in NCAA singles along with Mushika and Mi – advanced to the round of 16 to earn All-America singles honors
• Mushika reached the second round of NCAA singles and paired with Alsola in NCAA doubles
• Mi also advanced to the NCAA singles second round in the fall
• Berta Passola Folch, a junior from Spain, has a 22-11 singles record, including two 6-0, 6-0 wins in the first two rounds of the NCAA Championship
• Freshman Greta Greco Lucchina, who joined the Bears in early January, has a 13-6 singles record
• Naomi Xu is 12-11 and fellow freshman Sophie Hernandez is 12-6 in singles
• Sophomore Tiziana-Marie Schomburg is 10-5 in singles
• Along with the Bears who call the United States home, Cal boasts players from five different countries in Mushika (Japan), Passola Folch (Spain), Greco Lucchina (Italy), Xu (Canada) and Schomburg (Germany)
• Augustus – a Cal Athletics Hall of Famer, two time NCAA doubles champion, 2016 Wilson/ITA National Coach of the Year, 2021 Pac-12 Coach of the Year and five-time ITA Northwest Region Coach of the Year – is in her 18th year as head coach at her alma mater
• The Bears' entire coaching staff consists of Cal women's tennis alumnae, including assistant coach Stephanie Kusano Wallace, who is in her first year on the staff, and Jean Lozano, who has returned to the role

Scouting the Bulldogs

• Georgia has won five straight matches
• The Bulldogs beat Florida A&M 4-0 in the NCAA first round and Georgia Tech 4-0 in the second round in Athens
• Prior to NCAAs, Georgia defeated Texas A&M 4-2 in the SEC Championship final to capture its third straight conference tournament title
• Six Bulldogs are ranked in the ITA singles poll, including 2024 NCAA singles champion and 2025 SEC Player of the Year Dasha Vidmanova, who's ranked second, No. 17 Anastasiia Lopata, No. 28 Scarlett Nicholson, No. 42 Aysegul Mert, No. 74 Guillermina Grant and No. 90 Alejandra Cruz
• Three Georgia doubles duos are ranked: No. 1 Vidmanova and Mell Reasco, No. 29 Mert and Grant, and No. 68 Grant and Lopata
• Several Bulldogs earned conference awards, including Lopata, Reasco and Vidmanova (All-SEC First Team) as well as Sofia Rojas (SEC Newcomer of the Year)
• Drake Bernstein is in his second season as Georgia's head coach; he was named the SEC Co-Coach of the Year in April for the second straight year

Stay Posted
For further coverage of the Bears, follow them on X (@CalWomensTennis), Instagram (@CalWomensTennis) and Facebook (/CalWomensTennis).