The No. 17 UCLA women’s tennis team sat in eager
anticipation with their eyes fixed on the sky. Would they get to
finish their match against No. 6 California? A sudden downpour of
rain answered with a resounding “no,” and both teams
packed up their rackets and called it a day.
Sunday afternoon in a rescheduled match against the Golden
Bears, the Bruins were once again in a state of eager anticipation.
This time, their eyes were fixed on sophomore Elizabeth
Lumpkin.
With the scored tied 3-3, the weight of the deciding match fell
upon the shoulders of Lumpkin. She split the first two sets with
California’s Bojana Bobusic, but with a backhand winner down
the line, she closed out the third set 6-1 and clinched the match
for the Bruins.
“I just tried to get point after point,” Lumpkin
said. “Even if it seemed like she hit winners, I tried my
best to run them down and return them.”
With the 4-3 victory, the Bruins record their biggest upset of
the season and improve to 5-2 while the Golden Bears drop to
6-3.
The Bruins began the match with a 1-0 lead having already won
the doubles point Friday before it started raining. They
immediately added another point as Tracy Lin breezed past
Cal’s Claire Ilcinkas 6-0, 6-1.
Although senior Laura Gordon was unable to upset 14th-ranked
Suzi Babos on court 2, junior Alex McGoodwin made the score 3-1
with a 6-0, 6-2 win on court 4.
“Tracy and Alex really got in there and finished their job
fast,” Lumpkin said. “Today, we were aggressive and had
that extra fight in us.”
California fought back to tie it up 3-3 with victories on courts
1 and 2. But the Bruins would not let California complete the
comeback and finished off the upset with Lumpkin’s win on
court 6.
“We knew we had what it took to beat these guys,”
Lin said. “We really needed this.”
The upset was so clutch for UCLA because they had lost their
match against No. 1 Stanford the day before and were in danger of
recording a third straight loss. Despite a valiant effort and
sophomore Riza Zalameda, Gordon and Lumpkin each taking their
matches to a third set, Stanford came up with a 6-0 shutout.
With a 60 percent chance of rain, both the Bruins and Cardinal
agreed to begin the match with singles and only play doubles in the
event of a 3-3 tie.
However, Stanford picked up its fourth and match-clinching point
on court 1 as senior Amber Liu defeated Zalameda. For a good part
of the afternoon, it seemed as it Zalameda was going to win her
match. She won her first set 6-2 and kept Liu on her heels by
taking the first 3 games in the second set. Liu, however, battled
back to take the set 6-4 and used her momentum to defeat Zalameda
6-0 in the final set.
“I had the game to beat her,” Zalameda said.
“But I let her get into a rhythm and she ran off games one
after another.”
A key to the Bruins’ loss was their inability to close out
sets. They had the chance to take several sets but always let them
slowly slip away.
“We were in it with them every set today,” coach
Stella Sampras Webster said. “We just couldn’t get the
big points when we needed them.”
The Bruins’ ability to pick up big points late in matches
will be essential to their success against top opponents for the
rest of the season. They continue to learn from their mistakes and
refuse to let their spirits be crushed.
“Even if the score doesn’t show it, I know we played
well,” Gordon said. “If we keep improving, I
don’t see any reason why we can’t win.”