The Stanford women’s tennis team was simply overwhelmed in its first tournament of the 2007-2008 campaign. By the end of the Riviera/Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-American Championships this weekend, the Cardinal women had won only three matches, while dropping seven.

Stanford entered the Championships with three players ranked in the ITA preseason top-20 — senior Celia Durkin at 9th, junior Jessica Nguyen at 15th and sophomore Lindsay Burdette at 16th.

Unfortunately, the big three suffered first-round losses in the singles main draw, two of the them coming to players from the qualifying bracket.

Durkin dropped a 6-4, 5-4 (ret.) decision to Maya Johansson of Georgia Tech, who is unranked in singles, while Nguyen was upset 6-4, 6-3 by Arkansas’s Aurelija Miseviciute, ranked 119th.

Rounding off the first round sweep was Burdette’s 6-4, 6-4 loss to Zuzana Zemenova of Baylor.

Even worse, Stanford lost its leader, Durkin, to a sprained ankle in the first round.

According to coach Lele Forood, the injury is “not serious” and Durkin is expected to be “alright” for the upcoming season.

“We had some pretty tough first round matches,” Forood said. “But after we got through those, we came back and played pretty well.”

Indeed, the Cardinal showed signs of life in the consolation bracket, recording its first match wins of the season.

Burdette made the quarterfinals of the draw with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 win over Fani Chifchieva of Auburn, but later fell 6-4, 6-0 to Northwestern’s Georgia Rose, who was ranked 8th in the preseason polls.

On the opposite end of the bracket, Nguyen battled to the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Sarah Fansler of Southern California and a 3-6, 6-0, 6-3 victory over Sanaz Marand of North Carolina.

However, Nguyen eventually lost 6-2, 6-3 to top-ranked LSU’s Megan Falcon.

This weekend continued Stanford’s misfortune at the Championships. The Cardinal most recently won the singles title in 1990, and the last doubles title in 2000. In fact, the last Stanford woman to make the finals of the main draw was Erin Burdette ‘05, Lindsay’s older sister.

Despite another sub-par showing at the Championships, Forood knows that her squad needs “practice and match play right now” to bounce back.

With Stanford starting school more than a month later than most schools in the tournament, the Card was at a disadvantage from the start.

“We’re just behind the other schools that have been in school and have been practicing longer than we have been,” Forood said. “But, we’ll be up to speed in a couple of weeks.”

Coming into the season, there were many lingering questions about the Stanford roster. Over the last two years, Stanford has lost four top-ranking players, most recently Teresa Logar ‘07 and Anne Yelsey ‘07.

Though this weekend may not have answered any of these questions, Forood believes that there isn’t yet a sense of urgency among her players.

“It’s not that kind of tournament,” Forood said. “We’re just trying to have good performances and to get some match play, but there is no panic or anything this early in the season.”

In fact, the Card knows what it must do to return to form. This weekend, Nguyen, Burdette and freshman Carolyn McVeigh will compete in a tournament at St. Mary’s, hoping to get up to speed in their match play.

Next weekend, Stanford will host the ITA Northwest Regional Championships, a tournament that plays in the Card’s favor.

“It’s a big tournament with many teams participating,” Forood said. “It’s a huge draw so it’s a nice chance to get a lot of matches in for everybody on our team.”

Though it isn’t a time to panic, it is in fact time for the Card to put this setback in the past and catch up with the rest of the pack.