It’s a luxury most Bruin teams don’t have.
The UCLA women’s tennis team will send three freshmen out
for their first match experience of the season and not have to
worry about a blemish on its record.
Kicking off the year at the Pac-10 Indoor Championships this
weekend in Seattle, the Bruins will play individually against
players they will face later in match-play during the conference
season.
“It’s a good experience for them since we go up to
play University of Washington this season,” coach Stella
Sampras Webster said of her freshmen. “It’s good for
them to see what it’s like up there.”
However, the most highly touted of the Bruin freshmen will not
be heading to Seattle.
Riza Zalameda, whose No. 9 pre-season ranking is the highest on
the team, will be playing in the Freeman Memorial Women’s
Athletic Tennis Championships, along with sophomore Daniela
Bercek.
The tournament, hosted by UNLV, features four of the top-20
players in the nation and includes players from Pac-10 rivals
Stanford, USC and Cal. Though the Freeman event has been around for
a few years, it is the first time Sampras Webster is sending any of
her players there.
“It’s easier to take the whole team to one site, but
I just want to see what it’s like at UNLV and maybe take more
players next year,” she said.
With UCLA’s top two players competing in Las Vegas, the
Bruins playing in Seattle will have better opportunities to face
stronger opponents there. The Pac-10 Indoor Championships feature
four flights of competition with each school fielding, at most, two
players per flight. And though the results may not indicate how
successful each player will be throughout the course of the season,
Sampras Webster is looking forward to seeing how her players fare
playing in higher flights.
“It’s a good first tournament of the season to see
where everyone’s at and get matches,” Sampras Webster
said. “They need matches. That’s why we like playing
this tournament.”
Like teams in other sports that play pre-season scrimmages to
evaluate players and figure out lineups, this tournament can also
serve as a measuring stick for a Bruin team that starts match play
next week.
“I want to see how well our doubles teams are going to do
and get more results to determine doubles teams and lineups,”
Sampras Webster said.
Over the next three days, she hopes to get a clearer picture of
where her players stand. But regardless of what she sees, there
won’t be a change in her team’s record.