MALIBU “”mdash; Revenge is sweet.
Even sweeter, perhaps, was the way the UCLA women’s tennis
team shut out No. 13 Pepperdine 4-0 to earn a bid in the Sweet
16.
Heading into their match against the Waves, the Bruins (15-6)
were well aware of what happened the last time they competed in
Malibu, a gut-wrenching 4-3 loss in February.
But no longer will those memories live on in the Bruins’
minds, as they turned the tables on the home team on Saturday.
“We were ready for them, and I’m not sure if they
really took us as seriously as they should have,” senior
captain Laura Gordon said.
In the teams’ first matchup of the season, UCLA appeared
to have the doubles point captured, but the No. 3 duo of sophomore
Tracy Lin and freshman Ashley Joelson let an early lead slip away,
giving the point to Pepperdine.
This time around UCLA made sure not to let that happen. They
stayed aggressive and took control of crucial points en route to
seizing hold of the coveted doubles point, as Gordon and her
doubles partner, sophomore Riza Zalameda, defeated their opponents
8-4.
“They’re a pretty good team, but if we started off
well I knew that we would have a good chance of winning,”
Gordon said. “And just having one court off is huge
motivation for the other courts.”
Knowing the match was far from over, though, the Bruins made
sure to jump ahead quickly in singles action.
At one point it appeared as though the momentum that the Bruins
had worked so hard to get was beginning to sway to the home
team’s favor.
Gordon, who had jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first set,
lost six consecutive games to No. 22 Bianca Dulgheru, dropping the
first set on the top court.
That was when the remaining four Bruins turned it on, capturing
their first sets then building early leads in the second sets.
Following the strong play of her teammates, Zalameda caught
fire. She reeled off five straight games to capture the first set,
coming back from a 5-2 deficit.
“It seemed like everything was going her way, but I just
started counterpunching and she started getting frustrated,”
Zalameda said of her opponent.
Lin captured the Bruins’ second team point with a 6-1, 6-2
victory over Pepperdine’s Caroline Raba.
Joelson gave UCLA a 3-0 lead with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Eva
Dickes. Joelson lost to Dickes in the team’s prior meeting,
which she called the worst she had played all season.
Sophomore Elizabeth Lumpkin, who did not compete in the
Bruins’ earlier loss to Pepperdine, stamped UCLA’s
ticket to the Sweet 16 with a 6-4, 6-3 win.
“It was a lot of fun and really intense,” Lumpkin
said. “I could feel all the energy from all the girls while
we were playing, and even before the match.”
Though the Bruins have advanced to their seventh straight Sweet
16 appearance to face No. 4 Florida, UCLA coach Stella Sampras
Webster hopes the win over Pepperdine can be just the
beginning.
“It just shows how much better we are now than we were at
the beginning of the season. But we’ve got a lot more work to
do once we’re up in Stanford,” she said.