Tuesday, April 9, 1996
Zaima happy with his last home match, will miss seeing players’
games matureBy Hye Kwon
Daily Bruin Staff
Last Saturday’s match against California not only marked the
last home match for three members of the UCLA women’s tennis team,
it also marked the last home match for departing head coach Bill
Zaima.
Zaima, who announced last season that the 1996 campaign would be
his last as the Bruins’ head coach, has accumulated 183 wins along
with 82 losses in 16 years at UCLA.
"I’m feeling a sense of satisfaction," Zaima said after last
Saturday’s match. "I was brought in to help set the program on its
course, and I think we’ve accomplished that."
With Keri Phebus, Paige Yaroshuk and Anicia Mendez all
graduating at the end of this year, the Bruins have a lot of
developing to do for next year. And according to Zaima, the
opportunity to help young players like current freshmen Brandi
Freudenberg and Jody Anglin develop into mature tennis players is
what he will miss the most in his retirement.
"I’ll miss watching the players mature over their careers here,"
Zaima said. "The player that comes in here as freshman is not the
same player when she graduates. I won’t miss the competition, but
I’ll miss that aspect of coaching."
* * *
With three road matches remaining in their regular season
schedule, the Bruins are trailing two matches behind the conference
leader Stanford. UCLA has a record of 4-3 in the Six-Pac
(consisting of the four California and the two Arizona schools in
the Pac-10 conference), while Stanford has a record of 5-0 with
five conference matches remaining in its schedule.
By winning out the rest of the season, and with some generous
help from Stanford, the Bruins still have a chance to win the
regular-season conference title. But the UCLA coaching staff
acknowledges that winning the next three matches against Stanford,
California and USC on the road is easier said than done, especially
when the Bruins find themselves in a late-season funk.
"We have not played a good match all year long," Zaima said.
"We’ve got a lot of wins but they have been wins with scores of 5-4
or 6-3. What we need to do is dominate a good opponent."
Squeezed between the Cardinal and the Bruins is Arizona, who
currently holds a conference record of 6-1. The only blemish the
Wildcats have on their record came when they suffered a 3-6 loss
against Stanford on Feb 16. Arizona lost again to Stanford a week
later at the National Indoors in Wisconsin, but since it was a
tournament loss, it does not get tallied into the Wildcats’
conference record.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Freshman Brandi Freudenberg will have to fill the gap left by
graduating seniors.