The Arizona women’s tennis team looked slightly intimidated on Friday when it matched up against No. 12 USC and lost 6-1.

By Saturday’s match against No. 7 UCLA, the Wildcats (5-5) played with the nothing-to-lose attitude, but were defeated by the same score.

“”On paper, the teams we played were so much better than us, so some of the girls believed they couldn’t compete with them,”” said junior Danielle Steinberg. “”There was a lot of improvement from Friday to Saturday. The girls had more belief in each other and in their teammates.””

Steinberg won the lone point for the Wildcats in her singles match against USC, 6-4, 7-6 (11-9).

On Saturday, the first doubles point against UCLA was too close for comfort.

Steinberg and Claire Rietsch beat their opponent on the No. 1 court by a score of 8-6.

The concentration then shifted towards duo Jane Huh and Ariane Masschelein, for first point of the match. Although it was a neck-and-neck brawl, the Arizona pair was defeated, 8-6.

Katie Orletsky later scored Arizona’s only other point of the weekend in her singles match (6-4, 6-2).

“”At first, I was getting frustrated with my chances to score, and not making the best of them. I felt like I was trying to do more than just play (my game).”” Orletsky said. “”So I got more concentrated confident. I knew everyone was out there fighting hard and giving it their all – that’s all you can really ask for.””