The No. 4 Cardinal women kicked off their opening round of 16 in Tulsa, Okla. with a 4-0 shutout of No. 13 Clemson, perhaps one of the hottest teams in the field.

As if championship tennis wasn’t hard enough already, Stanford had to do it before most students on campus even got up.

“Our first challenge was playing a match nine o’clock central time because that’s 7 a.m. for us,” head coach Lele Forood said. “So we worked really hard the last three days to acclimate to the time schedule here, getting up and practicing very early.”

Indeed, the hard work paid off as the Cardinal women easily dispatched the Tigers amidst poor weather and a half hour rain delay.

Clemson entered the tourney on a 12-match win streak that included key wins against Duke and defending national champion Georgia Tech.

In fact, the Tigers defeated Duke twice, the second victory earning them an ACC crown.

“We were very aware of how well they had finished the regular season and how much confidence they had after beating a couple top-ten teams,” Forood said. “We were extremely aware of them and we were very prepared.”

As much as the Tigers were rolling, the Cardinal women were even better.

In doubles, Stanford dominated with wins on courts two and three.

After a marathon two-hour doubles match against Texas A&M, senior Celia Durkin and sophomore Carolyn McVeigh were the first to finish with an 8-3 win.

Senior Whitney Deason and junior Jessica Nguyen quickly followed with an 8-0 victory to claim the doubles point.

“That was a good start,” Forood said. “We really steamrolled in the beginning at doubles. That gave us a lot of confidence and we went on [to] singles and had really good performances.”

Then in singles came the marquee match-up of No. 3 freshman Hilary Barte against No. 2 sophomore Ani Mijacika. Both were 28-6 heading into the match.

In the first set, Barte and Mijacika exchanged break points before Barte pulled away 6-3.

“Clearly she hasn’t played a lot of matches lately so ... I wouldn’t say she’s [necessarily] at peak form right now,” Forood said. “There was a lot of intrigue to the first set. It was going on and on, but she was mentally tougher. That took a little resolve.”

Then Barte took over and finished off Mijacika for her 29th win of the year, including her 19th straight as Stanford’s number one player.

“Everyone can see the scoreboard, and you never know whether that impacted Ani’s effort in the second set,” Forood said. “Hilary got more consistent and maybe Ani’s resolve dropped a bit too which led to a quicker second set. Hilary played pretty smart and won a lot of key points.”

After McVeigh’s 6-3, 6-4 win against Laurianne Henry and Barte’s easy win, it was only a matter of time before the Cardinal women advanced to the quarterfinals.

“It was just a matter of seeing who would finish next,” Forood said.

Eventually, sophomore Lindsay Burdette clinched the match with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Ina Hadziselimovic.

Despite all the hype around the match, Stanford easily came away with a win, which Forood attributes to the team’s hard work since arriving in Tulsa.

“We’ve had great practices here,” Forood said. “Everyone’s done exactly what they’ve had to do and we were very well prepared when we went on court. It showed up in today’s match.”

On Saturday, Stanford will square off against No. 5 Baylor in the quarterfinals.

The two teams met earlier in the season in the first round of the National Indoors, where Stanford easily won by the score of 4-2.

“Because we don’t play them in the season, it’s nice to have played them at the Indoors,” Forood said. “We know who they are, we know what to expect. The familiarity will be good for us.”

Still, much has changed with the Cardinal lineup since early February, such as having Barte entrenched at number one.

“Our lineup’s a bit different now since indoors, so there’ll be three different match-ups in singles,” Forood said. “On the other hand, they have a revenge factor on that side, but we can’t worry about that. All I know is that we can take comfort knowing who they are.”

In fact, with the match slated for 9 a.m PT, Stanford can take comfort in having no more early morning matches like the Clemson one.

“If we are able to keep proceeding in the tournament, we won’t have to play early anymore,” Forood said.

Beyond that, reclaiming the national title wouldn’t hurt as well.