While the Los Angeles Tennis Center event staff was busy giving
away free T-shirts to the fans in the stands, the UCLA
women’s tennis team was busy giving free lessons to its
opponents on the court.
The No. 12 Bruins demolished visiting No. 13 Texas 6-1 on
Tuesday. The victory gave UCLA a three-game winning streak and also
improved its home record to a spotless 5-0.
“I was really impressed with our team today,” UCLA
coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “We really came out and
dominated a lot of the matches against a very tough Texas team.
We’re just playing better and better.”
Like the previous weekend in Washington, the Bruins (9-4) swept
the doubles point from the Longhorns (8-3), led by the
nation’s No. 3 tandem of freshman Riza Zalameda and sophomore
Daniela Bercek, who dispatched of Texas’ No. 28 Knedar Strohm
and Katie Ruckert 8-6.
“We expect them to win every match; they are that
good,” Sampras Webster said. “They’ve got the
pressure of every other team going after them. … We depend on
them a lot to win.”
Despite the final score, Zalameda and Bercek struggled early,
finding themselves down 3-5. But the duo quickly found its form,
reeling off five of the next six games to put away its Texas
opponents for good.
“We just started to concentrate better,” Bercek
said. “Every game we lost was close, but we just didn’t
execute.”
But being down early is nothing new to Bercek and Zalameda.
The two have been in similar situations in the past, but are
almost always able to overcome the challenge of playing with their
backs against the wall.
“Today was not our best day,” Zalameda said.
“But we have been through those situations before, coming
back and eventually winning the match. We knew that it was only a
matter of time before we would start playing better. We just try
not to get down on ourselves because we know we are the better
team.”
Once UCLA was done grinding out the doubles-point victory, the
Bruins took the singles courts by storm as they finished the day by
taking five out of six matches.
Bercek and Zalameda’s momentum from doubles clearly
carried over into singles as No. 38 Bercek overwhelmed Petra Dizdar
6-0, 6-2, while No. 19 Zalameda trounced Strohm 6-1, 6-1 to take
the Bruins to a quick 3-0 lead.
The match was clinched when redshirt freshman Alex McGoodwin,
playing on Court 3, defeated Ruckert 6-4, 6-4.
After an exhausting schedule of four matches in three cities in
the span of just one week, the Bruins will now take a 10-day hiatus
before heading out on another road trip, this time to face the
Arizona schools.
“We’re feeling confident,” Sampras Webster
said.
“Hopefully, we can find a way to keep that up and stay
focused over break.”