MALIBU, Calif. — Playing its final regular-season home match before heading to San Diego on Saturday, the No. 26 Pepperdine women's tennis team will host No. 42 UC Santa Barbara for Senior Day on Thursday at 1 p.m.
Fans are encouraged to arrive early on Thursday, as the Waves will honor five-time All-American Savannah Broadus, who is the lone senior on the roster. Admission to the match is free to the public, and the match will be livestreamed for free via PlaySight. Then on Saturday, the Waves play a road doubleheader at No. 57 San Diego at noon before facing UC San Diego at 6 p.m. All live stream and live stat links can be found on the women's tennis team's schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
While Thursday's match with UC Santa Barbara is a rematch from earlier this season, Saturday's match against San Diego has massive West Coast Conference title implications. Once again, the WCC regular-season title is a two-team race between the Waves and the Toreros, who are the last two undefeated teams in conference play. Pepperdine has won the last 11 WCC regular-season titles.
MATCH 19: #26 Pepperdine (9-8, 3-0 WCC) vs. #42 UC Santa Barbara (10-8, 6-0 Big West) | Thursday, April 10 | 1 p.m. | Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center | Malibu, Calif.
MATCH 20: #26 Pepperdine (9-8, 3-0 WCC) at #57 San Diego (9-8, 4-0 WCC) | Saturday, April 12 | Noon | Hogan Tennis Center | San Diego, Calif.
MATCH 21: #26 Pepperdine (9-8, 3-0 WCC) at UC San Diego (9-9, 4-4 Big West) | Saturday, April 12 | 6 p.m. | Northview Tennis Courts | La Jolla, Calif.
SCOUTING THE WAVES
After splitting a pair of matches against Washington and Washington State last week, the Waves are looking to continue their winning ways with another busy week with two non-conference matches.
Ranked 26th in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, Pepperdine is on the outside looking in for a top-16 seed and home-court advantage for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. However, this week is still important for the Waves' postseason aspirations. Thursday's match can be another top-50 win for the Waves' resume, plus Saturday's match against San Diego will likely determine the WCC regular-season title.
Right now, Pepperdine has two players and one doubles team in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association singles rankings: No. 12 Savannah Broadus, No. 67 Anastasiia Grechkina, plus the nation's twelfth-ranked doubles team of Broadus and Vivian Yang, who made the NCAA Doubles Championship this past fall. Pepperdine is the only team outside the Power-4 ranks with multiple top-100 singles players and a top-15 doubles team.
Freshman Alexia Harmon is on the longest active win streak of anyone on the team. The Las Vegas native has won her last five matches and leads the team with a 12-4 record in dual-match play. She has surrendered just 16 games in her last five matches, and all of her wins in WCC play were in straight sets. Harmon and Duru Söke lead the team with perfect 3-0 records in conference play, while Liam Oved is also undefeated in conference play at 2-0.
Pepperdine leads the all-time series against two of its opponents this weekend. The Waves have a 35-7 record against UC Santa Barbara and have won the last 19 matches against the Gauchos. The Waves have a 64-5 advantage over San Diego and have won the last 15 matches between their WCC rivals. Saturday's match against UC San Diego will be the first-ever meeting between the two programs.
ACROSS THE NET
Stop if this sounds familiar: The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos used conference play to get back on the right side of .500 after playing a difficult non-conference schedule. The Gauchos are on a six-match win streak since losing to the Waves 5-2 in Santa Barbara on March 13. In that match, Pepperdine used the middle of the singles lineup to take care of business after winning the doubles point. Both of UCSB's singles wins came after Savannah Broadus clinched the match with a straight-set win over Anna Marie Weissheim.
UCSB played its best lineup against the Waves in that loss, which features All-American and the nation's 11th-ranked singles player Amelia Honer leading the charge. Honer is the top-ranked collegiate singles player from outside the Power-4 ranks for a reason, and the Hurd Award Finalist picked up her seventh nationally ranked singles win of the year against UC San Diego last weekend.
However, Honer has gotten quite a bit of help from her teammates Four Gauchos are riding win streaks heading into this week — chief among them is Raphaelle Leroux, who has won her last eight matches and moved up to fourth in the singles lineup because of her recent success. Senior Tyra Richardson is on a six-match win streak while playing mostly at the third position; coincidentally, her last loss was against Vivian Yang back in March.
With few opportunities for quality wins remaining in the conference slate, both teams are looking to Thursday as a chance to bolster their postseason resumes.
As for the No. 57 San Diego Toreros, Pepperdine's in-conference rival is also looking for an NCAA Tournament resume boost. The Toreros are on the wrong side of the bubble according to CollegeTennisRanks, and the match against the Waves is USD's last, best chance for a quality win.
After battling a myriad of injuries earlier this spring, the Toreros appear to be at full strength. Senior No. 34 Kailey Evans is back in the lineup for the first time in over a month, while fellow senior Claudia De Las Heras has gone 6-1-3 in her last 10 matches. The two veterans play together in doubles and rank 34th in the nation, which is the second-highest ranking among all WCC doubles pairings.
With a perfect 4-0 record and a streak of 19 consecutive singles wins in WCC play, the Toreros have taken care of business in league play. They've managed to do all of this with a mostly new roster, too: Gabby Gregg, Anni Puls and Hannah Read give USD three freshmen in the lineup, while UC Riverside transfer Brionna Nguyen is finally healthy for USD. Read has been a revelation for the Toreros with a 19-13 overall record and a five-match win streak while playing in the top half of the lineup.
As for the UC San Diego Tritons, Saturday's match against Pepperdine will likely be one of the biggest home matches in UCSD's Division I history. In their first year of postseason eligibility, the Tritons are a dark horse in the Big West Conference race. Head coach Sebastian Bader's squad has a 9-9 record and is looking to snap a two-match losing skid this week; the Tritons will face Division II Point Loma on Wednesday as a tune-up before facing Pepperdine.
Led by former Columbia Lion and the nation's 87th-ranked singles player Julia Haynes, the Tritons are an experienced team with eight upperclassmen. But aside from Haynes, who has gone 14-3 in dual-match play, the Tritons are looking for more contributors across the singles lineup. UCSD only has a winning record at the first and sixth positions, while the middle of the lineup has been an area of improvement for the squad.
UCSD has won the doubles point just six times all year. The pairing of Haynes and Naomi Nguyen leads the team with five dual-match wins at the first position, while UCSD has a losing record at the second and third positions.
WHAT'S NEXT
Next week, the Waves make their final regular-season road trip to Pacific and Saint Mary's, starting with a match at Pacific on Friday, April 18 at 1 p.m. All schedule updates can be found on the women's tennis team's schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
