The California women’s tennis team will begin its 2026 campaign by hosting the Cal Winter Invitational at the Hellman Tennis Complex and Channing Tennis Courts in Berkeley. The event, scheduled from Friday through Sunday, will feature players from Stanford, Cal Poly, and Saint Mary’s alongside the Golden Bears. The invitational includes both singles and doubles tournaments.
Matches on Friday are set to start at 1 p.m. PT. The schedule for Saturday and Sunday, as well as tournament draws, will be announced later. On Friday, women’s matches at Hellman Tennis Complex will take place between the Cal men’s tennis team’s dual matches against Cal Poly at 10 a.m. PT and San Diego State at 4 p.m. PT.
Admission to the event is free. Matches played at Hellman can be viewed via PlaySight livestream; there is no live stream available for matches at Channing.
Reflecting on recent achievements, Berta Passola Folch concluded a strong fall season for the Bears by reaching the final of the NCAA Singles Championship at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida. She won her first four rounds in straight sets before defeating Emily Welker of Ole Miss in a close semifinal match: 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(7). Passola Folch then faced North Carolina’s Reese Brantmeier in the final, falling 6-3, 6-3. This marked her first appearance in an individual postseason tournament and earned her All-America honors.
Passola Folch became the first Golden Bear to reach an NCAA singles final since Lynn Chi did so in 2014. The last time Cal reached an NCAA individual final was in 2016 when Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr competed in the doubles championship match.
Other Bears who participated in NCAA singles included Mao Mushika, Naomi Xu, and Greta Greco Lucchina. Mushika and Greco Lucchina also took part in the NCAA Doubles Championship.
Following these performances, four Bears appeared in the ITA’s final singles rankings of 2025: Passola Folch (No. 9), Xu (No. 63), Mushika (No. 73), and Greco Lucchina (No. 92). In doubles rankings, Mushika and Greco Lucchina were ranked No. 77 as a pair while Mushika teamed with freshman Laura Cilekova to earn a No. 80 ranking.
Looking ahead, California will begin its dual-match season during ITA Kickoff Weekend at Texas later this month, facing Baylor on January 24 before meeting either Texas or Arizona on January 25. The winner advances to February’s ITA National Team Indoor Championship.
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