In the past few years, the UCLA women’s tennis team has
lost several tight matches that could have swung the other way with
the impact of just one player.
That player left two years ago, but is coming back today.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, she will be on the other side of the
net.
As a freshman at UCLA, Megan Bradley boasted a 30-9 overall
record, finishing the season ranked fifth in the nation. But
shortly after that successful year, she decided to transfer to
Miami to be closer to home.
“She has to do what’s best for herself,” Bruin
coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “We can’t cry about
it.”
Today, Bradley will return to her first collegiate home as the
No. 20 Hurricanes visit the Bruins for the first time since Miami
won here (4-3) three years ago. Back then, Bradley was a high
school senior and had already signed a letter of intent to come to
UCLA.
But just over a year later, she wanted to return to Paige
Yaroshuk, Miami’s head coach, with whom she had trained
during high school.
“It’s understandable,” redshirt junior Lauren
Fisher said. “(Yaroshuk) had been her coach from
juniors.”
In another ironic twist, Yaroshuk was one of Sampras
Webster’s former players. Graduating in 1996, she was a
two-time All-American in singles and doubles. She and Sampras
Webster, who graduated from UCLA in 1991, were just one year
removed from playing on the same team. Instead, Sampras Webster
became an assistant coach during Yaroshuk’s last three
seasons. The transition from working with each other to competing
against one another has been a little strange.
“It’s different,” Sampras Webster said.
“We have a sense of history and are friends, but we’re
also competing now. We’re probably the toughest team on their
schedule so she will try to get her team ready for us.”
In her return to Westwood, Yaroshuk is bringing back the player
she took from the UCLA program. But Sampras Webster does not seem
to be the least bit envious of her former player’s possession
of the prized talent which she had initially claimed.
“There’s no bad feelings between us,” she
said.
She is also understands Bradley’s motives for
transferring. By the end of Bradley’s freshman season, it
became obvious that her shoulder would require surgery. Sampras
Webster feels that this, along with parental pressure to recuperate
in Florida alongside her former coach, compelled the All-American
to transfer. Although she was not available for an interview,
Bradley told The Hurricane shortly after her transfer that her
decision was not made to escape UCLA. Rather, the choice was
motivated by her desire to be closer to home.
“I have nothing negative to say about UCLA,” she
said. “I just wanted to play in familiar
surroundings.”
It’s hard not to think about where the program could be
right now if Bradley had stayed around.
The Bruins finished the 2002 season ranked fourth in the
country, graduating only two players. Bradley and Fisher had
reached the finals of the NCAA Doubles Championships, and would
have given UCLA a dependable No. 1 doubles team for two years. But
since Fisher’s elbow injury in the off-season and
Bradley’s transfer, the Bruins have struggled to field a
consistent doubles lineup.
“She was a big asset to our team,” Fisher said.
“But we have to regroup and work with what we
have.”
While the Bruins struggled at times to compensate for her
transfer last year, Bradley was not the dominant player of her
freshman season,. In 2003, largely due to her shoulder injury, she
finished the season ranked No. 55, going 17-9 overall. But she
seems to have regained her form this season, climbing back to No. 9
while accumulating a 9-1 record.
“She’s a good competitor and really strong,”
Sampras Webster said. “She has a lot of weapons to hurt
opponents.”
It is difficult to tally just how many losses Bradley’s
absence has cost the Bruins in the last two years, but a loss today
would be the most obvious of all.