No. 36 Cougar tennis had a rough opening match in California on Friday, falling to No. 5 Stanford 4-0 for the second time this season.

The day’s match was originally supposed to start at 1:30 p.m. but due to rainy weather the match was delayed.

Starting play at the Taube Family Tennis Courts, the Cardinal (15-1, 6-0) wrapped up the opening doubles point swiftly.

Junior Melisa Ates and freshman Yang Lee were up 2-1 early in their doubles match but lost five straight to fall to the No. 25 ranked doubles pairing in the nation. 

Sophomore Michaela Bayerlova and senior Aneta Miksovska won the first game of their match but the No. 36 ranked doubles pairing in the nation dominated them after that, claiming a 6-1 win to seal the doubles point for the Cardinal.

After Stanford claimed the doubles point in about 20 minutes, the Cougars (17-6, 2-4) were hoping to bounce back in singles play.

Unfortunately, the Cardinal claimed the first set of each of the six matches that were being played simultaneously en route to a 4-0 sweep of the Cougars.

Stanford junior Emily Arbuthnott, the No. 22 ranked player in the nation, easily took down freshman Savanna Ly-Nguyen 6-2, 6-0 to put the Cardinal up 2-0.

Freshman Hikaru Sato then fell 6-2, 6-4 to Stanford’s No. 35 ranked senior Melissa Lord to give the Cardinal a 3-0.

Cardinal sophomore Michaela Gordon, the No. 36 ranked player, sealed the victory with a straight set win over sophomore Michaela Bayerlova, the No. 57 ranked player.

Head Coach Lisa Hart said the Cardinal were a tough opponent.

“Stanford is a tremendous team and showed why they are the defending national champions,” Hart said. “We have another tough match tomorrow at California and we’ll be ready.”

The Cougars will look to bounce back and pickup their third conference win of the season noon Saturday against No. 19 Cal at the Hellman Tennis Complex in Berkeley.