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Women's Tennis Travels To Los Angeles To Take On #5 UCLA, #24 USC

Mar 17, 2021

FIRST SERVE
Utah women's tennis will remain on the road for Pac-12 play this week, traveling to Los Angeles for a pair of matches. Utah will open the road trip against No. 5 UCLA on Friday, March 19 at 2:30 p.m. MT at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. Live stats and a stream are available here for the match between the Utes and Bruins.

The Utes will then take on No. 24 USC on Saturday, March 20 at Marks Stadium. First serve for Utah and USC will be at 1 p.m. MT in Los Angeles. A live scoreboard and stream can be found.

REGION SUCCESS
Coming off a strong region campaign last year where the Utes went 8-0 against Mountain Region opponents, Utah has continued to be a force in region play and is 6-1 this year against Mountain Region teams. The Utes kicked off the 2021 slate with three-straight region wins, collecting a 7-0 win over Idaho State, a 5-0 win over New Mexico State, and a 4-2 win over Weber State. Utah also picked up victories against Dixie State and Boise State, before the sixth region win came over BYU a few weeks ago.

SCOUTING UCLA
UCLA comes in ranked No. 5 in the nation and holds an 8-3 overall record. UCLA's three losses came from then No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Pepperdine and No. 17 California. The Bruins have earned wins over six ranked squads, including Pepperdine in the first meeting between the programs this season. The Bruins are led by Abbey Forbes, who is 8-1 overall on court one and 1-0 on court two and is ranked No. 7 in the nation. Elysia Bolton is ranked No. 9 from the preseason poll, Jada Hart is No. 19, Sasha Vagramov is No. 113 and Vanessa Ong is No. 119 to round out the ranked Bruins. Bolton and Hart are the nation's top-ranked doubles team, but hold just a 3-2 record on the year.

SCOUTING USC
USC is sitting at 7-5 overall this season with notable wins coming over Washington, Oklahoma State, Denver and San Diego. The Trojans are ranked No. 24 in the latest Oracle/ITA poll and have three singles players ranked. Angela Kulikov is ranked No. 22 from the preseason poll, but has just played one match this year. Eryn Cayetano is ranked No. 48 playing between the top two courts, while Naomi Cheong checks in at No. 103 in singles play. Kulikov and Cayetano are the nation's No. 12 ranked doubles squad and hold a 4-0 record, although Kulikov has not played since mid-February.

LAST TIME OUT
Utah traveled to the Pacific Northwest to take on #38 Washington State and Oregon for the team's first road conference matches of the year. Utah fell to Washington State 4-1 although there was a chance to get more points on the board as Emily Dush was leading her match and Anastasia Goncharova picked up her first set and was tied 3-3 in the second. The point for Utah came from Anya Lamoreaux who battled for a victory after dropping the opening set. She then pulled out 6-4 wins in the second and third to get Utah on the board.
Against Oregon, Utah dropped a 4-3 match to the Ducks to end the weekend. Dush picked up a win on court two 6-3, 6-7 (5), 10-8, while Goncharova and A. Lamoreaux got it done on courts four and five. Goncharova earned a 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 win and Lamoreaux pulled out a 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory.
 
UP NEXT
Utah women's tennis will return home on Friday, April 2 to host Washington State at the George S. Eccles Tennis Center. The Utes and Cougars will compete at 1:30 p.m. MT. Utah will then host Washington for senior day in the final home match of the season. First serve in Salt Lake City will be at 11 a.m. MT on Sunday, April 4.