At their home opener, UC Santa Cruz women's tennis split their two Saturday dual matches at Harbor High School.
After a dramatic 5-4 loss to Menlo College, the Banana Slugs regrouped for a perfect 9-0 win against American River College.
 
Against Menlo, the Banana Slugs trailed 2-1 after doubles with Chloe Wu and Sweden Van Houten earning the only doubles point. After dropping the first singles match, the Banana Slugs came back to tie it 4-4 before ultimately falling in the deciding match in three sets. Chloe Wu won 6-0, 6-2 at No. 3 despite an early knee injury. Meghana Damojipurapu won took momentum after a tough opening set to win 7-6, 6-1. At No. 6 singles, Van Houten then tied the match with a dramatic 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 comeback.

"Everyone started the match fighting hard so when I went down and hurt my knee I wanted to keep up the energy and push through to win my match," Wu said. "It was a very close loss but I'm very proud of everyone for competing to the max."
 
It was a different story in the nightcap against the American River Beavers. After taking all the doubles, UC Santa Cruz took five singles matches quickly.
The most exciting finish was at No. 2 singles, where Natalie Sprenger fought hard and won a 10-point tiebreaker third set to finish the sweep.
 
"Two super tough matches back-to-back," Sprenger said after. "Our doubles are looking and feeling a lot better as we have been training really hard. We really gave it our all, and despite being super tired from a doubleheader came through with a sweep against ARC. It was awesome to have all of the families and friends coming out and supporting us at our first home match!"