It wouldn’t be your typical Stanford-Cal match up without the rain.

With heavy thunderstorms moving into the Bay Area, it appears as though everything is in place for the 66th match-up between the No. 2 Stanford women’s tennis team and its archrival, No. 9 California.

Last April, Stanford prevailed in a 4-3 decision over Cal to take the Pac-10 title despite multiple rain delays and a change of venue.

As history has shown, playing at Cal is always a difficult task, according to head coach Lele Forood.

“It can be a little tough with the rain, wind, moisture and cool air,” Forood said. “When you’re outside in February, you have to prepare for anything. Most of us are veterans so we know to layer up with clothing and prepare for all kinds of weather conditions.”

From the all-time records, there doesn’t appear to be any rivalry with Cal though — Stanford is 58-7 overall against its Pac-10 rivals and winners of the last 12 outings.

But if there’s one thing driving the Cardinal to victory this year, it’s that Forood doesn’t like losing to Cal.

“There’s definitely a rivalry between us,” sophomore Lindsay Burdette said. “The main source comes from Lele, who loves beating up on Cal. It comes out in her a little bit more because she likes to coach physically for this team and for the individual players.”

When asked about the rivalry, however, Forood downplayed the match-up.

“I don’t want to take it over the top or anything,” Forood said. “It’s a fun rivalry. Generally, we’ve gotten along pretty well, but of course we want to win.”

The match signifies the start to Pac-10 play in a difficult stretch of three matches in four days, and five straight road matches which includes trips to Washington and Los Angeles.

“It’s a really tough stretch, probably the roughest one of our schedule,” Forood said. “It’s a critical part of our season no doubt about it. It’s really tough that we have to go on the road for five straight matches of tough competition.

“That’s the way it is and we’ve just got to do the best we can do and hopefully come out 5-0,” she added.

Stanford’s road trip starts with Cal, which is certainly no easy opponent.

“Cal is a scrappy team, very talented and tough,” Burdette said. “They’re a mixed crowd with foreign and American players so it’s a very interesting crew. Each person plays very differently, so we’ve been preparing for individual players a lot this last week.

“We’re gearing up for this almost like it is [the National Team] Indoors,” she said.

Stanford is currently 4-1 on the season, its only loss coming to No. 1 Georgia Tech at last week’s ITA National Team Indoors. The Cardinal is coming off a 6-1 victory against St. Mary’s at home, the team’s 98th consecutive home win.

Cal is 3-2 on the season, suffering shutout losses at the Indoors to Northwestern and Miami. The Golden Bears are led by 2005 NCAA Singles Champion Susie Babos.

The Cardinal will counter with junior Jessica Nguyen who leads the team with 13 singles victories.

Stanford’s doubles teams have been impeccable as well. They have yet to drop the doubles point this season, highlighted by the team of Nguyen and senior Whitney Deason who are 9-0 overall and 5-0 in dual match play.

So it may be just another Stanford-Cal matchup, but the implications are so much more for the Cardinal’s long season.

“Basically we look forward to playing a good Cal team tomorrow,” Forood said. “It’ll be a challenge no matter what and they’re obviously a talented team so we hope for the best tomorrow.”