For the third time this year, the No. 7 UCLA women’s tennis team toppled crosstown rival, 10th-ranked USC, defeating the Trojans by a score of 4-0.
The only thing that changed was the stage on which they accomplished the feat ““ the Round of 16 at the NCAA Championships in Tulsa, Okla.
Coming into the match, the Bruins knew they’d be in for a battle, and the Women of Troy made sure to give them just that.
“It was a real fight,” UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “We knew they weren’t going to come out flat, so we had to be ready for that.”
From the opening moment, the match had little room for separation between the two squads, as the doubles point came down to the wire with the Bruins finally clinching it at court No. 2.
Redshirt senior Alex McGoodwin and sophomore Yasmin Schnack found themselves in a deep hole on court No. 3, trailing the USC duo of Cristala Andrews and Maria Sanchez, 7-2, before making an impressive run in which they won seven consecutive games to be the first team to finish.
“We were down 7-2 and coach came up to us and told us to just play more relaxed and start hitting our shots,” McGoodwin said.
“I think that was our problem at first ““ we were just too tentative. But once we got into it, we started playing a lot better and with more confidence.”
Schnack and McGoodwin both played pivotal roles in singles play as well, with Schnack earning a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Gabriela Niculescu at court No. 3, and McGoodwin clinching a spot in the quarterfinals for the Bruins with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Leyla Entekhabi.
“I’ve never played against her before, but I knew she was a grinder so I’d be in for a long match,” McGoodwin said. “It got pretty close in the end so I kept telling myself, “˜I’ve been here before,’ and started to play more aggressively.”
With the win, the Bruins advance to the quarterfinals where they will take on Arkansas, which upset second-seeded Georgia 4-2.
The Razorbacks, a 17-32 seed, have pulled off two consecutive upsets, including a defeat of 15th-seeded North Carolina on the road in the second round of the tournament.
Though the Bruins will have a day off to rest between matches, it will be the only one for the rest of the tournament if they continue to win, since they would be scheduled to play every day from Saturday through Tuesday.
“We’re just going to rest up and get ready to come back out and continue to play the type of tennis that got us here to begin with,” Sampras Webster said. “We played Arkansas in the Team Indoors in February, and we beat them, 4-3. They are a very strong team of great singles players. I think when we played them we lost the doubles point, so we are hoping to change that when we play them on Saturday.”
MEN’S TENNIS: The men’s tennis team will play its Round of 16 match at 4 p.m. against No. 14 Florida State.
The Bruins arrived in Tulsa on Monday afternoon and have spent the majority of the time adjusting to the weather conditions, which postponed this morning’s matches.
Florida State defeated South Alabama in the second round of the tournament to advance to the Round of 16.
With a win this evening, the Bruins would follow the women’s team’s suit by likely having to face off against USC, which also plays at 4 p.m. today.
The Trojans are stacked up against Oklahoma State, which upset No. 11 Tulsa, likely making them the team to root against at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center, the home of the Golden Hurricane.