TULSA, Okla. “”mdash; This time around, the UCLA women’s tennis team is taking care of business as fast as possible, and its most recent victim was Arkansas.
The seventh-seeded Bruins have yet to drop a point in this year’s NCAA Championships ““ a year after going down to the wire in nearly every tournament match.
“That’s what’s been great,” UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster said after the Bruins’ 4-0 win over the Razorbacks on Saturday. “We’ve just gotten the job done and have been playing extremely hard.”
Once again, the Bruins got off to a strong start, winning the doubles point in dominating fashion on the top two courts before heading into singles play.
In the last meeting between the two teams, at the National Team Indoors in Wisconsin, Arkansas took that point from UCLA, leading the Bruins to prepare more for the opening point this time around.
“I’m glad our No. 1 and No. 2 doubles teams were able to come out and really take it to them and win that point,” said senior Tracy Lin, who is ranked No. 1 nationally in doubles with teammate Riza Zalameda. “It really gave us big momentum going into singles.”
In singles, Zalameda was pitted against the nation’s top-ranked player, Aurelija Miseviciute, who broke Zalameda early in the first set before capturing it 6-3.
Elizabeth Lumpkin was the only other Bruin to lose the first set, putting UCLA in a position to finish the match early if they maintained their solid play.
Although both Zalameda and Lumpkin lost their first sets, they bounced back to capture their respective second sets to keep the Lady ‘Backs off the scoreboard.
“That’s the spirit of this team,” Sampras Webster said of the unwillingness of her players to back down. “We have so much experience with four seniors out there who don’t want to have this as their last match.
“They’re tough ““ tenacious, I would say.”
Lin was the first to wrap up her singles match, with sophomore Yasmin Schnack finishing less than a minute later on court No. 3 with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Anouk Tigu.
The clinching match came on court No. 4, where freshman Andrea Remynse overcame struggles with her serve to topple Nanar Airapetian 6-2, 6-2.
“It was mostly relieving,” Remynse said of her clinching victory. “I was having some problems with my serve today, and when you think you can’t do something, you can’t do it.”
One thing the freshman knows, however, is that she doesn’t want to have to go through the same emotions her fellow teammates did last year when they reached the championship match before falling 4-2 to Georgia Tech.
The Bruins are one match away from clinching a second-consecutive finals berth. They’ll take on sixth-seeded Florida in their semifinal match today at noon.
The two teams met in last year’s NCAA Championships quarterfinals, when the Bruins earned a 4-3 win over the Gators thanks to a 6-4, 7-6(4) win from Alex McGoodwin.
As far as Sampras Webster and the rest of the coaching staff are concerned, the Bruins couldn’t be dealing with the pressure and expectations any better than they have been.
“We knew that this team was good, and they’re dealing with the pressure and their matches in such a great way,” Sampras Webster said. “It’s tough to win when you’re expected to, but this team is really confident and playing extremely well.”
The difficulty of being able to win with such high expectations was showcased at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center both before and after UCLA eliminated 17th-seeded Arkansas.
To open the day, fourth-seeded Stanford was toppled by Baylor, and just a little while later California upset top-seeded Northwestern, which had lost just one match all season.
After the Bruins cruised in their match, Florida defeated the defending champion Yellow Jackets, who were the third seed, meaning that all top-four seeds have been eliminated.
“All the teams left at this point are just amazing,” Remynse said. “Any of them losing doesn’t matter; we just have to beat everybody.”
Even then, all the matches, with the exception of UCLA’s, came down to the wire and likely had an emotional and physical toll on the players and teams involved, giving the Bruins what Sampras Webster feels may be an advantage down the road.
“Our players are feeling great. Their bodies are well-rested and ready for the next match,” she said.