W. tennis: Bruins pull off close matches, lead team to strong victory

The outcome was pretty much a foregone conclusion. The margin of
victory, however, was not.

But when UC Irvine’s Jessica Broadfoot’s shot sailed
long, in a third set supertiebreak on Court 6, it gave the UCLA
women’s tennis team its first shutout of the season ““ a
7-0 win over an overmatched UC Irvine team.

“When you have that one player who lost, you have to get
them to rebound and be ready for the next match,” UCLA coach
Stella Sampras Webster said. “It’s nice to have every
player win.”

After dropping her first set to Broadfoot 4-6, Elizabeth Lumpkin
rallied to easily win the second set 6-1 and captured the match in
the supertiebreak 10-5.

“I needed to execute better on short balls,” Lumpkin
said of her first set. “She started missing a little more in
the second set.”

Lumpkin’s ability to pull out the close match was the
theme of the day for the Bruins. UCLA’s Daniela Bercek was
also challenged on Court 1 by Anna Bentzer, taking the first set in
a tiebreak before seizing control in the second set to win 7-6 (4),
6-2.

“Our players have the confidence they need to win the big
points,” Sampras Webster said. “You have to be mentally
and physically strong, and our players were stronger than UCI
today.”

While none of the Bruins will have to rebound from losses going
into Saturday’s match against Pepperdine, Alex McGoodwin did
bounce back after losing her match in UCLA’s season-opener
against Loyola Marymount.

McGoodwin, who moved down to the No. 4 spot after playing No. 3
against the Lions, had little trouble and was the first Bruin off
the court with a 6-0, 6-1 win against Hui Leow.

“I let her play control the match last time,”
McGoodwin said of her first match. “I was a lot more
aggressive and played my game.”

Sampras Webster noted that though the Anteaters were not able to
pick up a point off her team like the Lions did, they were much
improved from last year and presented the Bruins with a stiffer
test.

“LMU didn’t test us as much,” Sampras Webster
said. “Our players had to raise their level and game to win
today.”

They will likely need to do the same Saturday, against
Pepperdine, a team that picked up points in each of the
teams’ three meetings last year.

But in each case, the Bruins’ victory was decisive. The
margin was simply the icing on the cake.

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