After an impressive run at the NCAA Championship last season, UCLA women’s tennis coach Stella Sampras Webster felt the pressure to succeed. She knew she had to be patient and convince her team to do the same.
The expectations were set high as the Bruins would return all the players from last year’s runner-up team and add an impressive freshman, Andrea Remynse, into the mix.
Living up to those expectations, however, was by no means easy.
The Bruins faced an uphill battle during much of the season ““ with injuries, bad losses, and unaccomplished goals ““ before finally stringing together the six most important wins to earn UCLA’s first ever women’s tennis national championship.
“The regular season was a little disappointing,” Sampras Webster said. “But I kept telling them that we’re the same team that got to the finals last year. The whole coaching staff just wanted to make sure they kept believing that we’re a great team.”
It was a 4-3 loss to Arizona State on February 24 that could’ve been the end of the season for UCLA, as the team knew it had no business losing to the Sun Devils under any circumstances.
With their heads hanging low and sophomore Yasmin Schnack and senior Alex McGoodwin out of the lineup, the Bruins went on to lose two more matches in the same week, a 5-2 decision to Baylor and a 4-3 defeat suffered against Cal.
The chance of going undefeated, as the team had hoped to do after falling to Georgia Tech in the championship match last season, was long gone and Sampras Webster had to find some way to keep her team’s mentality positive.
“She would always make a point of saying that even though we lost, it didn’t take away from the potential that we had and she still believed we could achieve our final goal,” senior Tracy Lin said.
It was that belief that kept the coach sane during the trials and tribulations that forced her to shuffle around her doubles lineup, going away from what brought the team success last season.
“You have ideas and you have visions of what you want to see, but sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you think,” Sampras Webster said. “You start questioning yourself, but we were just patient and worked on getting each team better with two players hurt.”
After 11 years of falling short of her ultimate accomplishment, including two prior trips to the championship match, Sampras Webster was finally able to find the right combination of players to get over the final hump.
“It’s hard to get there and to actually win it was amazing,” she said.
Her job was made both easier and more difficult with the contributions of her four seniors: Lin, Elizabeth Lumpkin, McGoodwin, and Riza Zalameda.
On one hand, the seniors were the vocal leaders of the team, reiterating to the underclassmen the sense of urgency to win the title.
And on the other hand, their desire to work endlessly on fine-tuning their groundstrokes and other aspects of their respective games meant an increased amount of time that Sampras Webster would have to spend on the court.
From individual workouts to team meetings, Sampras Webster had her hands full trying to keep the team on pace to meet expectations throughout the season.
Although she maintained a great sense of patience throughout the season, that all went out the door when Zalameda had the NCAA Championship point on court No. 1 against Cal in the championship match at Tulsa.
Rushing toward the court after helping Remynse clinch her win on court No. 4, Sampras Webster hoped to catch a glimpse of the clinching point. As Zalameda won, Sampras Webster rushed the court to rejoice and let out a smile that is uncharacteristic of the usually composed coach.
“We were waiting for that day all year,” she said.
“It has been one of the most rewarding years for me because I know just how rare it is to make it that far and actually win it all.”