The USC women’s tennis team made its Big Ten debut this weekend at the Battle in the Bay Classic at the California Tennis Club in San Francisco. Junior and top singles player Emma Charney lost in the semifinals (6-2, 1-6, 6-4) and the top doubles team, Charney and sophomore Immi Haddad, lost in the consolation semifinals (8-4). 

Of the four Trojans that qualified for the tournament, three were returners, including senior Parker Fry, Charney and Haddad. Newcomer and graduate student Maia Sung arrives from a four-year tennis career at Princeton University. Sung is a three-time ITA Scholar-Athlete and an Academic All-Ivy. 

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

To start the tournament, both doubles teams took to the court at 10 a.m. Sept. 12. Charney and Haddad lost their match 8-4 to Washington State University’s new pairing of senior Elyse Tse and junior Yura Nakagawa. Fry and Sung shared the same fate in their 8-4 loss to UCSB’s senior Amelia Honer — who led her team with 20 singles wins and tied for the most doubles wins — and graduate Ali Benedetto from Brown. Both teams went into consolation play, with Charney and Haddad losing in the semifinals and Fry and Sung losing in the first round (8-5) to Colorado’s pairs.

As for singles, USC came out of the round of 32 with three wins and one loss. Haddad had a definitive straight-set win (6-2, 6-1) over Georgia freshman Sarah Branicki. Coming off a monster 2023-24 season with a 30-14 singles record and a career-high ITA singles ranking of No. 20, Charney defeated Pepperdine University’s blue-chip recruit freshman Taylor Goetz in straight sets (6-4, 6-3). 

In a competitive three-set match, Fry came out with a win (2-6, 6-0, 6-1) against the University of Portland senior Sally Pethybridge, who was ranked as high as No. 7 in Great Britain. 

To conclude Thursday’s matches, Georgia junior Sofia Rojas knocked Sung into consolation play after a tough three-set win (6-2, 4-6, 6-2). Rojas transferred from Oklahoma State and recorded wins over highly ranked players in the ITA Singles Rankings. 

In the round of 16, Charney steamrolled Colorado’s top player senior Mila Stanojevic with a straight set win (6-0, 6-0). Fry did the same with her own straight set (6-2, 6-2) win over TCU freshman Raquel Caballero Chica. Haddad took a loss (7-5, 6-4) against Pepperdine sophomore Vivian Yang, who represented New Zealand in the Billie Jean King Cup in 2022 and 2023. 

In the quarterfinals, Charney defeated Oklahoma State redshirt junior Anastasiya Komar in straight sets (6-1, 6-1). However, Fry took a 6-2, 6-1 loss against Georgia’s junior Anastasiia Lopata. 

In a heated three-set semifinal match, Lopata defeated Charney (6-2, 1-6, 6-4) and moved on to the finals, which she won by default due to Oklahoma State senior Ange Oby Kajuru’s injury. 

Last spring, the Trojans were ranked No. 13 nationally and ended with a strong 20-9 overall record along with a 8-2 record in Pac-12 conference play, so the team has high hopes this fall. 

USC will take the court next Sept. 21 at Cary Tennis Park in Cary, North Carolina for the ITA All-American Championships.