After starting the weekend with a 7-0 loss to No. 6 Stanford, the No. 63 Arizona women’s tennis team tried to recuperate for its next battle against No. 8 California.

The Wildcats’ (7-8, 0-4 Pacific 10 Conference) recovery didn’t go according to plan, but some improvements were noticed.

“”We’re starting to think the right thoughts and understand what it means to compete effectively on a weekly basis, but it’s a little hard,”” said Arizona assistant coach Brian Ramirez. “”They got pretty beat up, if you look at the score, but the reality is that there was some good progress made this week by a lot of different players.””

Even though California won the doubles point and won the clinching match, sophomore Natalia Toporowska held her head high in her remaining match and continued to fight. The perseverance on the No. 3 court paid off, when she beat the No. 32 player in the country in Cal senior Cristine Visico, 6-1, 6-3 and 1-0.

“”Natalia was playing with one of the tougher competitors in the country, and for her to go out and pick her apart in the second set and third set tiebreaker was fantastic,”” Ramirez said.

“”On one hand, winning that match felt good individually. On the other hand, it’s hard to feel good because our team didn’t win,”” Toporowska said. “”We know we’re not going to blow these teams off the court, but we took steps going in the right direction.””

Ramirez also mentioned that despite the tough competition, junior Danielle Steinberg and sophomore Katie Orletsky’s level of play was respectable.

“”All the coaches want to see is for us to go out there and compete a hundred percent and believe in ourselves,”” Steinberg said.