All season long, the UCLA women’s tennis team had been
teetering on the edge of prominence.
Over the weekend, the Bruins were finally able to take that
leap.
In their final regular-season match of the year, the No. 10
Bruins convincingly knocked off No. 4 USC, 5-2, on Saturday,
avenging an earlier loss to the Trojans last month.
More importantly, the win is UCLA’s first against a
top-five ranked opponent this year. The decisiveness of the victory
will likely make that earlier loss all the more forgettable, both
in the team’s eyes and those of the NCAA Tournament
committee’s.
“I’m really proud of them,” UCLA coach Stella
Sampras Webster said. “I knew that we were better than how we
played in our last meeting and I think we proved that
today.”
Because the match did not count toward the Pac-10 standings, the
Bruins still finished the regular season third in the conference.
Yet having won nine of their last 10 matches, they are proving to
be one of the hottest teams in the nation. Among the top 10 teams,
only undefeated Stanford has a better record over that span, giving
the Bruins a good claim for a high seeding going into the NCAA
Tournament.
“I think we should definitely be in the top eight;
that’s where we want to be,” Sampras Webster said.
“Hopefully, we will get a good draw and we’ll see what
happens. This tournament is wide open.”
Although they clinched the match before USC (16-3, 7-1 Pac-10)
even got on the scoreboard, the Bruins were dangerously close to
falling behind early in the match.
After dropping the doubles set on Court 2, Daniela Bercek and
Riza Zalameda came back from a 4-1 deficit on Court 1 to score a
9-7 victory in order to secure the doubles point for UCLA (15-5,
6-2).
“We made a lot of errors and they started pretty
well,” Bercek said.
“But we knew we had to win because we knew how important
the doubles point was.”
“That doubles point was huge for us,” Sampras
Webster said. “We came out a little slow, but coming back to
win the matches at (courts) 1 and 3 was a big part of the
win.”
Using the momentum gained from the doubles point, the Bruins
jumped on the Trojans quickly in singles and were able to take four
of six matches to wrap up the victory. Bercek clinched the win for
UCLA with her 6-2, 6-3 win over No. 10 Nicole Leimbach on Court 1.
The win was Bercek’s third over a top-10 ranked player in as
many matches.
“I just played my game,” Bercek said.
“I’m just working hard and having good matches. I know
my points are going to be important in singles and
doubles.”
Bercek’s performance was emblematic of UCLA’s strong
singles play. Junior Laura Gordon paced the Bruins singles’
dominance, overpowering Carine Vermeulen on Court 5, 6-2, 6-3, to
give UCLA its first singles victory.
“I didn’t want to stay on the court any longer than
I had to,” Gordon said. “I just rolled with it. I
didn’t want to let my opponent get back into the
game.”
UCLA’s Alex McGoodwin and Elizabeth Lumpkin also picked up
straight set victories on Courts 3 and 6 respectively to solidify
the win.
“Our singles players just really came out strong,”
Sampras Webster said. “The fans really kept them fired up. We
played some of the best tennis I’ve seen this
year.”