No. 16 Stanford women’s tennis (5-1) prepares for a weekend at home as they host Fresno State (3-4) on Friday before welcoming No. 31 Texas (4-3) on Saturday for their two final out-of-conference games.

Coming off of an important win against No. 7 Vanderbilt, the Cardinal climbed back up in the rankings from No. 25 to No. 16. The Cardinal are still looking to grab more wins against ranked opponents in order to get back to the No. 4 spot they occupied earlier this season. Their lower current ranking is largely due to a new algorithm used by the Oracle/ITA rankings that heavily weights victories against ranked opponents, and Stanford has played fewer of these so far this season relative to other top programs. 

As returning national champions, the Cardinal expect to develop a deep roster before entering their tough Pac-12 campaign later this season. Stanford’s underclassmen have lived up to the team’s expectations so far this season, culminating against Vanderbilt last weekend as freshmen Emily Arbuthnott and Emma Higuchi and sophomore Melissa Lord provided Stanford with three singles wins.

Stanford is currently riding an 11-game winning streak at home, while it has not lost against opponents ranked above 25 since last March. The Cardinal have won 18 games in that time span and hope to keep those streaks heading into conference play.

Contact Alexandre Bucquet at bucqueta ‘at’ stanford.edu.