ERIC M. JUKELEVICS/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA freshman Maja Mlakar lunges for a forehand Saturday in her doubles victory over Southern California at the Robson Tennis Center. Arizona lost a pair of weekend matches to UCLA and USC.

The Arizona women's tennis team failed to take advantage of an opportunity to climb up the national rankings this weekend, losing both matches during a homestand against the Pacific 10 Conference's Los Angeles schools.

No. 8 UCLA and No. 16 Southern California both left Tucson with convincing victories over the Wildcats.

Arizona fell to the Bruins 2-5 on Friday, but UA freshman Maja Mlakar upset Megan Bradley (7-5, 6-4), who is ranked third in the nation.

"I was pretty happy after the win," Mlakar said. "She beat me at UCLA and I knew that I could beat her at home. I was pretty confident going into the match."

After losing to UCLA for the second time this season, the Wildcats came out on Saturday looking to salvage a victory against the Trojans.

It looked like UA might do just that when they came out strong and won the doubles point, but that was the only point they won against the Trojans and they lost 1-6.

Senior Brooke Taylor said the score was not an indication of how close the match really was.

"The USC match was definitely closer then the score appeared," Taylor said. "We just didn't get a few points to go our way."

The tight match was evident in Mlakar's meeting with No. 10 Jewel Peterson.

Mlakar, looking to pull her second upset in as many days, took the first set 6-3, and it looked as though she was going to take the match.

However, Peterson didn't back down, and she came back to win the next two sets 4-6, earning herself the victory.

Arizona's No. 2 and 3 players, sophomore Debbie Larocque and freshman Dianne Hollands, each lost in three sets as well.

"We won the doubles point and we came out really motivated," Larocque said. "We had three matches that could have went either way. We fought so hard and it was sad that the score didn't show that."

After the weekend, the Wildcats' record dropped to 8-8 overall and 1-7 in Pac-10 play.

The road ahead doesn't get any easier, as No. 14 Washington comes to town next weekend.

Taylor said Arizona is a highly motivated team and will be ready to work hard this week.

"We have always been a motivated team," Taylor said. "We will come to practice this week and work to get ready for Washington."