MALIBU, Calif. — Meeting for the 70th time in one of Southern California's most storied college tennis rivalries, the 6-seed Pepperdine women's tennis team hosts 11-seed USC for the NCAA Super Regional on Friday. First serve is scheduled for 1 p.m.
Admission to Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center is free to the public. The match will be livestreamed via PlaySight and as part of Cracked Racquets' whip-around Super Regional coverage provided on its YouTube channel. Livestream and live stat links for all matches can be found on the women's tennis team's schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
This will be the third meeting between the two teams this year. Pepperdine beat USC 4-2 in the ITA Division I Indoor National Team Championships consolation draw before sweeping the Trojans at home on March 23. USC took the doubles point in the first meeting, yet the Waves finished off the Trojans with Jasmine Conway's win over McKenna Koenig at the sixth position. Later in the season, Nikki Redelijk clinched the Waves' home sweep over USC with her straight-set win over Lily Fairclough on court five.
Pepperdine will aim for its third NCAA Quarterfinal appearance in the last four years. This year, the NCAA Championship takes place in Stillwater, Okla. from May 17-19. Either 3-seed Michigan and Miami (FL) — who play in Ann Arbor on Saturday — await the winner of Friday's match.
SCOUTING THE WAVES
Make no mistake: There is no love lost between USC and Pepperdine.
Squaring off for the third time this season and the third-consecutive NCAA Tournament, the 6-seed Waves will need to get past one of their in-state rivals to head to Stillwater next week. While Pepperdine has dominated the all-time series as of late, Friday's match between the Waves and Trojans is the only local rivalry of the eight Super Regional matches. This matchup has the history and plenty of storylines in what could be another meaningful chapter in the series between two of Southern California's best college tennis programs.
Mathematically speaking, Pepperdine has the edge over their cross-town rivals no matter how you slice the numbers. The Waves have won 14 matches in a row against the Trojans, including the last eight in Malibu. Pepperdine has ended USC's last two postseason runs, both of which were in the second round. As a team, Pepperdine singles players have a cumulative 23-5-5 record — or a .773 win percentage — against current USC players — and of that group, Zaar is a perfect 6-0. This year's Pepperdine squad has only known success against USC.
Speaking of the Waves, their seven-woman roster makes up for its lack of depth with an abundance of talent, causing them to be a serious contender for the national title.
Boasting three All-Americans atop the lineup in #12 Savannah Broadus, #15 Lisa Zaar and #39 Janice Tjen, Pepperdine has five nationally ranked players in its singles lineup. And the two unranked true freshmen on the roster are respectable in their own right: Jasmine Conway is the West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year, while Vivian Yang is already a perfect 2-0 in NCAA Tournament matches with her straight-set wins from last week. Throw in seniors #80 Nikki Redelijk and #86 Anna Campana in the mix, and Pepperdine's lineup has talent and skill from top to bottom needed to win matches.
Pepperdine's doubles lineup is effective too, as the nation's second-ranked team of Savannah Broadus and Janice Tjen are in the final act of one of the best doubles careers in program history. Broadus and Tjen are the first team in Pepperdine history to earn All-American honors three times, they have a 30-3 overall record this season and have gone 12-1 against nationally ranked pairs. Redelijk and Yang join them at the second position, plus a new team of Campana and Zaar, which has a 4-1 record since the duo's debut three weeks ago.
In last week's opening rounds, Pepperdine quickly dispatched SIUE in a 4-0 sweep before overcoming a doubles point loss to #26 Arizona State by winning the match with four straight-set singles wins. Heading into this Friday, Redelijk leads the team with her nine-match win streak, while Broadus and Tjen have won their last eight singles matches. Tjen leads the team with her 18-2 record at the first three positions, plus she has gone 8-2 against nationally ranked players this year.
SCOUTING THE TROJANS
After sweeping Cal Poly and San Diego last weekend, head coach Alison Swain's USC Trojans have won 20 matches for the second straight year heading into the Super Regional. This year marks the furthest USC has advanced in the NCAA Tournament since reaching the Super Regional in 2021, where they fell 4-1 to North Carolina State.
But USC is looking for more. With four nationally ranked singles players and two top-60 doubles pairs, the veteran-heavy Trojans aim to make the NCAA Quarterfinals for the first time in a decade. In order to do that, the 10 Trojans on the roster need to do something they have never done before: beat Pepperdine.
This year's current USC roster has five singles wins against the current Pepperdine lineup across the 10 players on the Trojans' roster. Grace Piper is the most successful of the bunch, having three singles wins against Campana and Redelijk in her career. Having no experience playing Pepperdine but a 1-0 record after last weekend's second-round win over San Diego, true freshman Immi Haddad is USC's wild card.
Long story short: USC's path to victory probably includes winning the doubles point, Piper taking care of business, Charney outlasting Tjen in a top-40 singles battle and someone else to pull an upset.
Yet the Trojans have the talent to do so. Sophomore #33 Emma Charney and the aforementioned #60 Piper both earned berths to the NCAA Singles Championship, while #99 Snow Han and #97 Eryn Cayetano give the Trojans four top-100 singles players in the lineup. Cayetano, Charney and Piper all have at least 25 singles wins in the 2023-24 season. In doubles, Cayetano and Charney are ranked 22nd in the latest ITA doubles polls, yet USC broke up that pair last weekend and still managed to win the doubles point in both NCAA Tournament matches.
Earlier this season, USC won the doubles point over Pepperdine at the ITA Division I Indoor National Team Championships thanks to #60 Parker Fry and Piper clinching the doubles point at the third position. That team has since moved up to the second doubles position, where they most recently clinched the doubles point against Cal Poly in the first round. USC's only other point against Pepperdine this year was Piper's 6-2, 7-5 win at the fifth position at ITA Indoors.
THE LAST TIME…
Pepperdine reached the NCAA Quarterfinals: 2022
Pepperdine won an NCAA Super Regional match at home: 5/13/22 (4-0 over #9 Miami)
Pepperdine won a 4-3 match in the NCAA Tournament: 5/21/21 vs. #1 North Carolina
Pepperdine lost a 4-3 match in the NCAA Tournament: 5/13/23 vs. #8 Texas
Pepperdine lost the doubles point, but won an NCAA Tournament match: 5/4/24 (4-1 over ASU)
Pepperdine won the doubles point, but lost an NCAA Tournament match: 5/17/19 (4-1 loss to #3 Stanford)
Janice Tjen clinched a postseason match: 5/6/23 vs. USC
Lisa Zaar clinched a postseason match: 5/4/24 vs. Arizona State
Savannah Broadus clinched a postseason match: 5/5/23 vs. Grand Canyon
Nikki Redelijk clinched a postseason match: Never
Anna Campana clinched a postseason match: Never
Vivian Yang clinched a postseason match: 5/3/24 vs. SIUE
Jasmine Conway clinched a postseason match: Never
