She was up against all odds.
Nobody could have guessed that she would be able to pull off a
victory, and things certainly didn’t look as if they were
going her way at the end of the first set.
But freshman Ashley Joelson of the UCLA women’s tennis
team completed the upset to topple No. 76 Jessica Nguyen of the
undefeated Stanford Cardinal 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 in the Pac-10
Invitational Singles Championships.
“It felt really good to get the win,” Joelson said.
“That was the first college tournament that I’ve
won.”
Nguyen, the younger sister of UCLA men’s tennis player
Jason Nguyen, came into the match with just two losses this season,
one to No. 8 Zsuzsanna Fodor of California and No. 14 Cristelle
Grier of Northwestern.
In the rounds leading up to the tournament final, the Stanford
freshman had dropped a total of just five games, equalling the
number of games Joelson had dropped in the first set of her
semifinal match.
“She pretty much killed everyone and didn’t give up
many games, so I was a little worried going into the match because
I didn’t really know what she would be coming out
with,” Joelson said. “But at the same time I knew that
I was playing some of the best tennis I’ve played.”
Joelson, who had very little time to worry about what her
opponent would come out with, came out with a fire of her own,
capturing the first set and continuing to play her best tennis.
However, it seemed as though that level of tennis started to
emerge on the other side of the court in the second set as Nguyen
fought to equalize the match.
“She started playing a lot better as the match went
on,” Joelson said of her opponent.
“I was just trying to be consistent with her. I knew she
would get on a roll and string together some good points, and I
would have to fight back.”
Joelson fought back to capture not only the third set and the
match, but also her first collegiate tournament title.
Competing in the same draw as Joelson were Bruin sophomore
Elizabeth Lumpkin and freshman Anna-Viktoria Lind.
Both lost in their quarterfinal matches. Lind fell to Marian
Ravelojaona of Cal 7-5, 6-4 and Lumpkin to Nguyen in three sets
6-1, 6-1.
“She just played the bigger points a lot better than I did
during that match,” Lumpkin said of Nguyen in their
quarterfinal meeting.
In the main Pac-10 singles draw, the only member of the UCLA
team remaining after the first day of action was senior Laura
Gordon. But her run ended the next day in the quarterfinals, where
she suffered a three-set loss to the tournament’s top seed,
Alice Barnes of Stanford, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
In the Pac-10 doubles draw, however, Gordon was able to make it
past the quarterfinals by teaming up with sophomore Riza Zalameda.
They made it to the semifinals before losing to the
tournament’s second-seeded team, Susie Babos and Suzi Fodor
of Cal, 8-4.
“We started off strong, but they started playing
better,” Gordon said. “It just wasn’t our day,
and it was a tough loss.”
The Bruins now await the May 3 announcement of where they will
be competing in their NCAA Regionals. If UCLA comes out as the
winner in the regionals, they will advance to the NCAA
Championships, which are being held at Stanford this year.