Cal's men's and women's tennis teams received bids to the 2013 NCAA Championships on Tuesday.

The women have been chosen to all 32 NCAA Tournaments and this marks the eighth season in a row they have been seeded high enough to host first- and second-round matches. The Bears enter this year's field as the No. 8 seed and will play Stony Brook in the first round. Saint Mary's and Auburn are also coming to Berkeley. The matches will be May 10-11 at the Hellman Tennis Complex.

Cal's men's team is headed to the University of Florida for a first-round matchup against Florida State on May 10. Florida and Denver are the other two teams headed to Gainesville, Fla. for first- and second-round matches.

The men are ranked 18th in the nation and finished the regular season with a record of 14-9. This will be their 14th straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

The Cal women will be looking to advance to the Round of 16 for the 12th time since the NCAA Championships went to 64 teams in 1999. The Bears reached the Elite Eight last season.

Coach Amanda Augustus, a former Cal star player now in her sixth season, led the Bears to back-to-back NCAA title match appearances in each of her first two years running the program.

"We're glad to be hosting, especially with our team finishing up their classes and going into finals," Augustus said shortly after her team watched the selections in the Haas Pavilion club room. "And it's a reward for having a good season. We've worked hard and we've had a really good regular season."

The Cal women are ranked No. 7 in the most recent national polls and finished the regular season at 16-5. The Bears feature two singles player ranked in the top 10 in the country -- No. 5 Zsofi Susanyi and No. 8 Anett Schutting.

Schutting has improved her ranking from No. 22 in the preseason, a development that has been especially important as the Bears have dealt with a couple of key injuries during the season.

"We've had some minor injuries here and there this season and at different times people have stepped up," Augustus said. "Particularly someone like Anett. She is now a consistent top-10 player with a legitimate shot."

Should the Bears get by Stony Brook and then the winner of the Saint Mary's-Auburn match, they would advance to the Round of 16 in Urbana, Ill.

Thirty years ago, Cal men's golf coach Steve Desimone took the Bears to their first-ever Pac-10 Tournament and they finished dead last by over 170 strokes.

Monday morning on the Los Angeles Country Club North Course - the same links that hosted that 1983 event - the No. 1 Bears will begin attempting to defend their first-ever Pac-12 title and tie an unofficial NCAA record with their 10^th tournament victory of the 2012-13 season.

"To have the opportunity to defend our championship there and win a 10^th tournament at L.A. North - I just kind of close my eyes and pinch myself and see if we can pull this off," Desimone said.

Watching the Bears these days, it doesn't seem possible they were once the doormats of the conference. The 2012-13 Cal men's golf team is one of the best ever in the history of college golf. Not only are the Bears on the cusp of tying the mark for most tournament wins in a season, they feature five golfers ranked in the top-26 in the country. That includes the nation's No. 1 golfer in sophomore Michael Kim, who has won four tournaments this season and is a candidate for the Haskins Award and national semifinalist for the Ben Hogan Award.

Junior Michael Weaver missed two tournaments earlier this month because he was competing in the Masters after finishing as the runner-up in last year's U.S. Amateur. Weaver, who will also compete at the U.S. Open in June, is the third-best Cal golfer in terms of ranking.

"I told the guys in September that I think we are the best team in the country," Desimone said. "But not in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be one away from tying the all-time record."

Despite the Bears' regular season accomplishments, Desimone acknowledges now is the time to really perform. Cal is favored to repeat as Pac-12 champions, then must finish in the top-five of the NCAA Regionals to return to the NCAA Championships. Last season, the Bears advanced to the NCAA semifinals before falling to Alabama.

"We have some unfinished business," Desimone said. "We have to take this as a step-by-step process. I think everybody understands that this is when legends are made, legacies are made. This is when it happens."

While the Bears are the prohibitive favorite to win the Pac-12 Tournament, the conference features a strong field. There are four other teams ranked in the top-10.

The event is 72 holes over three days, beginning Monday at 8 a.m.

Like most corners of the globe, it's all about soccer in Denmark.

Except for the Konigsfeldt family.

Christoffer Konigsfeldt had a tennis racket in his hand before he could walk. His parents, Pernille and Thomas, were both tennis players. Both of Konigsfeldt's older brothers also played.

Tennis was a way of life in the Konigsfeldt home in Rungsted Kyst, a coastal suburb outside Copenhagen. Christoffer also played soccer for awhile as a young child, but it was a lost cause.

"I used to play in a (soccer) club, but I gave it up when I was 13 or 14," said Konigsfeldt, now a senior on Cal's men's tennis team. "I didn't have time for both tennis and soccer. At that time, I was already one of the top players in the country in tennis. I wasn't as good at soccer."

It appears as though Konigsfeldt chose the right sport. He became a member of Denmark's Davis Cup team last year and is the Bears' No. 2 singles player. He also teams up with junior Campbell Johnson to form Cal's No. 1 doubles team.

The Bears are in Ojai this weekend for the Pac-12 Championships after finishing in a tie for second place in the regular season standings. Third-seeded Cal will meet Utah in a second-round showdown on Thursday.

"Chris has a level of experience where he's used to playing in front of a hostile crowd or a really vocal crowd," Cal coach Peter Wright said. "He's not afraid of the spotlight. He's one of the guys, when we play a big match, he really gets up for it. When it comes to crunch time, he is a guy that we want to have out there in singles and doubles."

Konigsfeldt says in a small country like Denmark, the competition thins out pretty quickly at the highest level of tennis. When he got to Cal, he began facing better players more consistently.

"The competition is way higher here," he said. "In Denmark, at my age, we probably have three or four players that can compete. Here, it's hundreds, maybe a thousand that can compete at a high level. At home, you see the same three guys every weekend in the finals. Here, you see new guys all the time that can play. It's more exciting."

That being said, Konigsfeldt said playing Davis Cup is the ultimate accomplishment for a tennis player. And even though tennis itself may not be part of Denmark's daily mindset, it's a source of pride for him.

"It's not a huge deal. It's all about soccer in Denmark," Konigsfeldt said. "But you're representing your country. I was a ballkid for Davis Cup when I was growing up. I was always chasing the players for autographs. Suddenly, I'm the one the little kids are chasing. It's quite different."

Konigsfeldt has been to five Davis Cup matches with Denmark and played singles in two of them. He won a relegation playoff match in Finland last October and then was forced to skip Cal's match against Pacific in February to play in Romania, where he lost in a first-round contest.

Konigsfeldt said tennis has started to gain more popularity in Denmark since native Caroline Wozniacki ascended to No. 1 in the world in the women's game a couple years ago.

"For any tennis player, the Davis Cup is the biggest accomplishment," Konigsfeldt said.

The Bears enter the weekend ranked No. 18 in the country despite losing one of their top players, Riki McLachlan, to a knee injury early in the spring season. With contributions from players like McLachlan's brother, Ben, Konigsfeldt, Johnson and Gregory Bayane, Cal has been able to remain competitive with some of the best programs in the country. The Bears have knocked off No. 4 Duke and No. 11 Florida this season.

"The part that I'm really excited about is our guys really accepted the challenge and we've had some tremendous performances," Wright said. "We finished tied for second in the Pac-12, which is overachieving with this group of guys. We have a really good team, but for what we've been doing, I think the guys are just playing incredibly well as a unit."

 

This week's edition takes a look at what it takes for Cal to host a postseason tournament. The Bears are hosting the MPSF Women's Water Polo Championships this weekend at Spieker Aquatics Complex.

A closer look at the unveiling of the Cal men's basketball team's new uniforms:

Highlights of Cal's walk-off win over Washington State on Sunday, courtesy of the Pac-12 Networks:

This edition focuses on Cal's 10th-ranked softball team, which hosts Oregon State this weekend.

A look back at Wednesday's Brand Identity Launch:

This edition features Cal golfer Michael Weaver, who will be playing in the Masters this week. Weaver will be the first Cal golfer ever to play in the Masters while still in college.

NEW ORLEANS - Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb is about as thorough a coach as you will find. She is a film junkie. She prepares for every scenario and every situation in a basketball game. She's been known to rehearse her press conference quotes.

So when she told her team Sunday night that she was only going to spend two minutes thinking about the Bears' 64-57 loss to Louisville in the Final Four, it may have been a little white lie.

But you get the point.

Sunday's loss stung, not only because it ended such a remarkable season, but even more because the Bears were in position to win. Cal led by 10 at halftime. The Bears still held a lead with under four remaining. It wasn't so much the Cardinals were significantly better than the Bears; they were just a little bit better when it counted.

That all being said, a team that was ranked No. 13 in the preseason Associated Press top 25 went to the Final Four. That came after winning a share of the Pac-12 championship. That came after knocking off Stanford at Maples Pavilion. That came after winning a program-best 32 games.

So even though the Bears were right there with a chance to play for the national championship Tuesday night, Gottlieb's point is really the only one to make - once the sting wears off.

"What I said to our team in the locker room is that we can be disappointed about a half of basketball that we wish we had back," Gottlieb said. "We could be disappointed to not be playing on Tuesday night because we really wanted to be playing Tuesday night. But I'm going to think about that or two minutes, and for the next 10,000 minutes I'm going to think about what this group did for the University of California, the legacy they will have left this year - that when you come to Cal, you play or the person next to you, you play with a lot of character, you work really hard that you make the name on the front of your chest the most important thing, even if you are really, really talented."

During Cal's postgame news conference Sunday night, after the players left the podium, Gottlieb jokingly admitted she is going to think about her team's missed opportunities against Louisville for more than two minutes. "That was kind of a lie," she said.

One of the most lingering moments of the season came when the season was over. Moments after the final horn sounded, senior and team leader Layshia Clarendon huddled the team together and adamantly implored them to remember what they accomplished this season, to not let a loss on the second-to-last day a team can play tarnish the legacy the 2012-13 Bears will leave behind.

"I told them, don't hang your head for one second because we've just come too far, done too much. It's hard to let it go. It's going to hurt definitely. But when you look at this team, you think about this team, I just can't help but smile because what we've done is beyond amazing. We've affected so many people and just to see all the good that's come out of it, all the positive, all the love and the legacy we are going to leave."