For the first and only time this season, the Bruins were rooting for the Trojans.
USC faced off against Stanford Wednesday in Ojai to resume a delayed match scheduled on April 2. A Trojan win would have given UCLA a chance to be Pac-10 co-champions with Stanford if the Bruins beat Cal in a make-up match of their own.
But the Women of Troy let down the Bruins as they were swept in the doubles competition by the Cardinal, who won the conference title outright and left UCLA in second place.
But the Bruins will have no time to dwell on this missed opportunity as the Pac-10 teams have assembled in Ojai for the Pac-10 tournament this week.
“It’s a great tournament. It gives the players that want to play opportunities to play. And those who don’t have to play ““ it’s not going to hurt them,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said.
The tournament will have no bearing on Pac-10 team results as it is largely an individual tournament for singles players and doubles teams.
“We’re holding out a couple of our players because of some nagging injuries. We kind of want to rest them and get them ready for regionals and NCAAs,” Sampras Webster said.
The Bruins will be resting junior Noelle Hickey, freshman Pamela Montez and junior Maya Johansson.
Senior Yasmin Schnack, the No. 2-seeded player in the main draw and the No. 6 player in country, will face off against Washington State’s Ksenia Googe in the first round of the 32-person draw. No. 5-seeded junior Andrea Remynse, the No. 24 player in the nation, will play Stanford’s Veronica Li. Freshman Stephanie Hoffpauir will square off against Stanford’s Stacey Tan.
“Andrea will get the opportunity to play someone other than a No. 3 from another school,” Sampras Webster said. “She gets an opportunity to play some better players to help her ranking. Yasmin is going in there to hopefully win the tournament. It’s her senior year, and she’s excited. She definitely wants to do well, being her last year.”
Two Bruins who haven’t seen much playing time will get the opportunity to compete in the invitationals singles draw. Sophomore Nina Pantic will play Arizona’s Elizabeth Hammond, and sophomore Carling Seguso will receive a bye in the first round and will face the winner of a first-round match between Cal’s Catalina Visico and Arizona State’s Ashlee Brown.
In the doubles draw, Schnack and Remynse, the No. 5 tandem in the country, will match up against Washington State’s Elisabeth Fournier and Liudmila Vasilieva. The doubles team of Hickey and Pantic will play Arizona State’s Micaela Hein and Kelcy McKenna. In the invitational doubles draw, Seguso and Hoffpauir will team up to play a doubles team of Stanford’s Logan Hansen and Arizona State’s Hannah James.
“It should be some high-level tennis,” Sampras Webster said of the tournament.