Five days after rain delayed a showdown between the women’s tennis teams of UCLA and Loyola Marymount, the two teams will meet to challenge one another.
The No. 15 Bruins (5-4) will travel a short distance to take on the No. 64 Lions (3-2). Though the match was originally scheduled to be played at the Los Angeles Tennis Center last Thursday, the new date meant a new location and one which has been previously unvisited by UCLA.
“It’s going to be away, which will add something a little different to the match ““ and we’ve never played there either,” UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster said.
The Bruins are coming off a week with no matches, but have utilized the time to their advantage, working on aspects of their games they felt were lacking during the prior weekend in the Bay Area where they took on No. 7 Cal and top-ranked Stanford.
The team worked on footwork, doubles play and hitting forehands and backhands deeper to their opponents.
“We had a week off and it was good because we got to work really hard physically and on certain shots,” junior Riza Zalameda said. “It’ll be nice to see how it all carries out.”
The match serves another important purpose for UCLA as well ““ it will help prepare the team for not only its weekend matches on the road against Washington and Washington State, but also for its biggest home match of the season against No. 8 USC.
The Bruins are looking to build and regain as much confidence as possible in its next three matches before facing the Trojan squad on March 8 at LATC.
“These next three matches are going to be all about building confidence,” sophomore Ashley Joelson said.
“We just want to keep competing,” Sampras Webster added. “We want to get some matches in before we play a team like USC.”
Though UCLA was anticipating and ready to play the match last week, the weather conditions forced them to wait even longer than expected, but the Bruins are nonetheless eager to take the courts and get themselves back on track.
“We were ready to play last week, and we were just bummed out that it rained,” Zalameda said. “I think, if anything, we’re just going to be more hungry to play.”
If the clouds and rainstorms that are projected for today’s weather forecast do strike Southern California, the two teams may be forced to push their match back yet another day.
A match on Wednesday would also have to be played at LMU because of the match that is scheduled between the No. 6 UCLA’s men’s tennis team and defending national champions No. 8 Pepperdine.
The original relocation of the postponed matchup was due to the fact that the Waves would be practicing on the courts at LATC to get a feel before heading into the top-10 battle on Wednesday.
If the match is rescheduled, the Bruins would have to go through the same routine as they did last week when they first learned of the initial postponement.
“When you wake up and you’re ready to play and you don’t play, it’s tough to get that sort of feeling again the next day,” Joelson said.