On Saturday, the UCLA women’s tennis team will begin a quest to defend its 2008 NCAA Championship.
The No. 11 Bruins spent the week preparing for the first rounds of the NCAA Tournament by concentrating on game and point situations. The group hadn’t played a match together since an April 17 loss to USC.
The Bruins will host Boston, a team they have not faced yet, at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. If UCLA advances, it will play the winner of a match between Arizona State and UNLV.
The doubles point will be pivotal to the team’s success. UCLA has three strong doubles teams, with the Bruins’ No. 1 team of Andrea Remynse and Yasmin Schnack ranked at No. 3 in the country. Yet UCLA has had trouble winning the doubles point throughout the year.
“We lost that doubles point in Tempe,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “But I feel like we are playing better than we did when we were at ASU and even earlier in the season. I’m excited to see how well we do against them, and I’m hoping we go in and really dominate that doubles.”
Schnack also said that the doubles point is essential to give the team the confidence it needs to do well in the tournament.
“Whoever gets the doubles point just has so much pressure off their shoulders,” Schnack said. “You can go out there and play singles. It’s not like you can’t worry, but you know you have that one point.”
The team’s success will also hinge on the middle of the lineup and the younger players. Senior Ashley Joelson sees progress in the team as a whole.
“We’ve improved so much,” Joelson said. “I think the freshmen got a sense of what it’s like to play on a team and the importance of playing for teammates.”
Sampras Webster is looking to a few key players in particular to step up and help the team advance through the weekend.
“I’m really hoping Nina Pantic comes out and plays well,” Sampras Webster said. “She’s someone who has the ability to do extremely well, and she just hasn’t had the success she expected or we expected. I hope she comes out really strong, because if we can win in the middle of our lineup it just makes everyone else that much better.”
Home-court advantage will also help the Bruins in these early rounds.
“It’s definitely a huge advantage for us. We always feel comfortable playing at home,” Schnack said. “We know the courts well; we have a group of people supporting us and cheering us on.”