W. tennis: Bruins, Huskies to face off in grudge match

In last year’s conference match, the Washington
women’s tennis team trounced UCLA, 6-1. Yet, oddly enough, it
will be the Huskies seeking payback in today’s match at the
Los Angeles Tennis Center.

The Huskies’ win last April gave them confidence and a No.
6 seed heading into the NCAA Championships, leaving the Bruins
(13-6, 3-1 Pac-10) seeded 11th and searching for answers.

Those answers were provided one month later at the tournament
with a 4-3 victory over the Huskies (17-3, 4-1) in the Round of
Sixteen.

Things have not changed much since last year. With the Huskies
ranked sixth and the Bruins seventh heading into today’s
match, a high seeding and momentum are once again on the line. Last
year the Bruins proved neither of those factors was all that
crucial, but they would prefer not to test their luck twice.

“It’s very important to get a good seed,”
coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “We’d like to be
five or six, so we don’t have to play the top two seeds in
the quarterfinals.”

Top-ranked and undefeated Stanford appears well on its way to
securing the top seed, but the Bruins and Huskies are among a
handful of Pac-10 teams jockeying for spots five through eight.
Eighth-ranked USC has already swept the Bruins this season and
eleventh-ranked California figures only to improve as it returns to
full strength, thus making today’s match all the more
critical for both teams.

And the memories of last year’s NCAA Round of Sixteen will
only add to the match’s intensity.

“I’m sure they’re going to be gunning after
us,” Sampras Webster said. “They remember last
year.”

It was indeed a bitter pill for the Huskies to swallow. Leading
3-1, they could not pull out any of the three remaining singles
matches. Laura Gordon clinched the match for the Bruins in dramatic
fashion, with a come-from-behind 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(4) victory that sent
UCLA to the quarterfinals and the Huskies home, wondering how
things could have turned so sour since the April meeting.

One obvious explanation was the shuffling of lineups.

While the Bruins’ battered bodies hampered them during
April’s meeting in Seattle, Claire Carter’s absence in
the NCAA championship match left a huge gap at the Huskies’
No. 2 spot. Carter, along with UCLA’s Sarah Gregg and every
other England native in the tournament, was suspended as the NCAA
looked into these players’ eligibility.

With the controversy now resolved and the 28th-ranked Carter
back at her No. 2 spot this season, the Huskies’ lineup is
much more reminiscent of last April than May. But Sampras Webster
hopes it will be the bottom half of the lineup, where Gregg and
Gordon play, that makes the difference today.

“Their top two players are excellent,” Sampras
Webster said of Carter and 18th-ranked Dea Sumantri. “But
they may not have the depth we do, and hopefully that’s where
we’ll come out on top.”

The bottom half of the Bruins’ lineup got the job done
decisively in Wednesday’s match against Pepperdine. Positions
four through six were the first off the court for the Bruins,
clinching the match while the top two courts battled through
tougher contests. It gave them a boost of confidence following
their shutout loss to Stanford last Saturday.

“It was good to get this match in during the week, before
playing Washington,” Gordon said.

The Bruins will also benefit from playing today’s match on
the slower LATC courts to which they are accustomed, rather than
the faster, indoor courts in Seattle. The Bruins hope the familiar
setting will make last April more forgettable and last May even
more memorable.

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