After seeing the cancellation of last Tuesday’s season-opening match against Cal Poly due to inclement L.A. weather, one word can describe the mood of the UCLA women’s tennis team:
Hyped.
And this afternoon, the Bruins will finally have the chance to show their excitement when they take on the Pepperdine Waves at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
The Bruins come into today’s match ranked No. 12 nationally, and according to coach Stella Sampras Webster, her team is overly anxious to get on the court and prove just how deserving it is of its lofty ranking.
“I think the players are just excited to get out and play,” Sampras Webster said before Monday’s practice. “So there’s definitely a lot of energy, and they’re really motivated to spend as much time out on the court as possible.”
Even though the recent unkind weather has sidelined the Bruins from getting on the courts at the LATC for practice, Sampras Webster is confident that her team has still been able to get in some valuable practice time in preparation for Pepperdine, who is the No. 40 ranked team in the land.
“We’ve had a productive week, even though it hasn’t been on the court … but with conditioning and all that we can do, we had a good weekend of practice,” Sampras Webster said.
Highlighting the Bruins’ rotation in Tuesday’s match, and presumably for the entire season, will be the singles play of senior Yasmin Schnack, and the doubles tandem of Schnack and junior Andrea Remynse.
Schnack enters the match as the No. 5 singles player in the country, while the team of Schnack and Remynse is ranked No. 10.
In addition to their high ranking, Schnack and Remynse have been busy during the fall preseason, competing in several tournaments dating back to October, with Schnack competing in both singles and doubles.
Schnack won the women’s singles title at the Cal/Nike ITA Invitational in October and also teamed with Remynse to win the women’s doubles crown. Schnack and Remynse also took home the doubles title at the Wilson/ITA Southwest Regional tournament in the same month, and Schnack came up just short of taking home the singles title as well, losing in three sets in the singles final.
But according to Sampras Webster, her girls get the most enjoyment out of competing as a team in the regular season.
“The fall results were good, but now the season’s starting,” Sampras Webster said. “I think everyone is excited to just play for the team, and it’s always more exciting during the season. But it was good to get a lot of matches in the fall and get people prepared for the season.”
Judging from last year’s match, there is no love lost between the Waves and the Bruins. Although UCLA defeated its local rivals twice last season, the second contest was fiery, to say the least, especially in the match between UCLA’s Maya Johansson and Pepperdine’s Jill Braverman.
Braverman, who won the match 6-4, 5-7 (10-7), was not shy in showing her exuberance throughout the match, much to the chagrin of Johansson, who then mocked Braverman’s jittery behavior upon the match’s conclusion.
But rivalry aside, Sampras Webster knows that her team has to focus on self-preparation rather than the opponent.
“The Waves come in here and they compete well, and we’ve got to be ready,” Sampras Webster said. “We know their team, they know our team. They’re a very solid team, and I expect a good battle. It always is. We just got to be ready.”