For Charlottesville, Va. natives, the weather this weekend will be nothing out of the ordinary. Highs will hover around the mid-40s with scattered rain and snow showers plaguing the area. Not exactly the most ideal conditions to play something many Californians would think a purely outdoor sport – tennis.
Luckily, the UCLA women’s tennis team will have a roof over its head when it takes its talents east this weekend to the University of Virginia and competes in the ITA National Team Indoors Championship.
The annual tournament pits 16 of the nation’s top programs in a four-round, single-elimination bracket that commences on Friday and culminates in a championship match on Monday.
This year, the Bruins enter the tournament as the No. 5 team in the nation, boasting an undefeated 5-0 record that includes two 7-0 sweeps in their previous two matches. History will also be on the team’s side as it has reached the championship match each of the past two seasons, winning it all two years ago in 2012.
On Friday, UCLA kicks off its tournament run with an opening-round matchup against No. 17 Texas Longhorns (3-1). With a win, the Bruins could end up potentially facing crosstown rival USC (3-0) in a tough, but familiar, second-round matchup.
“That’s always a big plus going there … seeing the rest of the country’s best teams, but we don’t always want to play a Pac-12 team,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “The first round is definitely the toughest to get through, but if this team gets on a roll, I think we can win this thing.”
Likewise, playing a tennis match indoors brings its own unique set of conditions that must compensated for. With traditional factors of wind and sun eliminated, players must instead focus on elements of the style of play.
“Indoors, everything is quicker; it’s just a more aggressive game,” Sampras Webster said. “Going indoors, having a big serve is a big advantage, and we’ve got some players with some huge serves. So if we can be consistent with that then we can be successful.”
Players must also account for more than just the speed of the game when preparing for an indoor match. Chanelle Van Nguyen, the No. 9-ranked singles player nationally, acknowledges that the roof itself can even become an issue in the matches. Van Nguyen said lobs and high flying shots are in danger of hitting the roof and counting as an automatically lost point.
Unlike players from warmer climates who might be unaccustomed to indoor tennis, Robin Anderson, the current No. 1-ranked Division I singles player, hails from Matawan, N.J., and is relatively accustomed to the nuances of indoor tennis.
“Out here we have sun and wind but in Indoors it’s perfect. I grew up playing indoor tennis and I love it,” Anderson said.
Although the indoor atmosphere takes center stage this weekend, the increased level of competition staring down the Bruins gives them their first taste of what will likely await them at the NCAA Championships in May.
“We all know that the competition this weekend is going to be a lot stronger than what we’ve been playing,” Sampras Webster said. “We’ll get a lot of info on how we’re performing and where we stand with the best teams in the country.”