Fueled by the strength of their No. 4, 5 and 6 singles’ players, the UCLA women’s tennis team recorded a dominating victory over Loyola Marymount University on Wednesday at Los Angeles Tennis Center.
Utilizing their excellent team depth as well as solid play from top players Riza Zalameda and Andrea Remynse, the Bruins were able to bounce back from a loss to University of North Carolina last week at the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships.
Coach Stella Sampras Webster was impressed with her team’s effort and response to the grind of traveling last week.
“(The win) was solid,” Webster said. “(It’s) always tough coming back from indoors. (The team) did a good job competing out there.”
Playing without key injured players, sophomore Yasmin Schnack and senior Alex McGoodwin, the Bruins achieved quick victories behind senior Elizabeth Lumpkin, junior Anna-Viktoria Lind and sophomore Stephanie Wetmore.
These players were the respective No. 4, 5 and 6 singles’ players, and they all achieved impressive straight set victories; dropping a total of just seven games between their matches.
Lumpkin won at No. 4 by a score of 6-1, 6-2, followed by Lind’s 6-0, 6-2 victory at No. 5 and Wetmore’s 6-1, 6-1 victory at No. 6.
Lumpkin said that even without a few injured players, the team should still win.
“(The team) wanted to make sure we won this match decisively,” Lumpkin said.
Recently coming back from injury herself, Lind said “she felt really good” but “nervous” because she has struggled with shoulder problems all year.
Lind only recently started serving again in December, so she “struggled with her toss” in the match, but still managed to pull off a decisive win.
Lind also played with Zalameda in the No. 1 doubles match earlier in the day, winning 8-3.
Zalameda experienced a semi-scare at No. 1 singles as LMU No. 1 Pavla Mesterova proved to be a very tough challenge.
In the first set, it appeared that Zalameda might be in trouble as she was trailing 4-5, but she managed to hold serve and break Mesterova at 5-all to go up 6-5 in the set.
Zalameda then ripped a forehand down the line to go up 40-30 and delivered a strong service winner to clinch the set at 7-5.
Late in the second set with the score at 5-4, with a 30-40 game score, Zalameda put together an impressive sequence of points, notching a cross-court forehand winner to force deuce, an ace at deuce to gain the advantage, and finally a service winner to the corner on match point to seal the win by a score of 7-5, 6-4.
No. 2 singles player Remynse and No. 3 Ashley Joelson won by notching scores of 6-0, 6-0 and 7-5, 6-3 respectively.
The Bruins secured a solid victory over LMU in a good warm-up match for Friday’s match against Fresno State University.
Fresno State is currently ranked No. 12 in the nation and should give No. 8 UCLA a challenge. Despite the recent injuries, Webster knows that Friday’s match will be tough, but when speaking about the team’s injuries, she said, “We’ve got a very deep team” and that she has “confidence in our depth,” noting that Friday’s match will be an opportunity to showcase the Bruins’ team strength.
MEN TO SEATTLE: The men’s team will begin the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Seattle, Wash. on Friday.
The Bruins (5-0), were awarded the No. 8 seed in the tournament. The Bruins will begin the tournament against Notre Dame, which is ranked No. 9 nationally.
The tournament will feature 13 of the top 25 teams in the most recent ITA rankings. If the Bruins win their first round matchup against the Fighting Irish they will meet top-ranked Virginia in round two.