The real test for UCLA women’s tennis starts this weekend.
After dropping three straight matches, the No. 21 Bruins (6-4) will only face Pac-12 opponents for the rest of the season, starting with the No. 16 Stanford Cardinal (7-1) on Friday.
“We don’t really have much time to think about (the past),” said junior Terri Fleming. “We have two really tough matches coming up this weekend, back to back.”
[Related: Women’s tennis grapples with maintaining late-game momentum]
The Bruins were fifth in the Pac-12 last year, their lowest finish since 2005, after posting a 6-3 conference record. The four teams that finished above UCLA, No. 7 California, Stanford, Arizona State and USC along with No. 25 Washington will be the Bruins’ main challengers for the Pac-12 title this season.
One of the keys for UCLA will be to capture the doubles point – the Bruins have dropped the point in all but one of their losses, but won it in each of their six victories this year. Last season, UCLA failed to win the doubles point in two of its three conference losses, the exception being a 5-1 decision at Stanford where the teams didn’t play doubles.
Before last weekend, the Bruins had tried four different doubles combinations this season, but only went 7-6 at courts two and three. Against Baylor, the team decided to switch all three of their pairings, putting Fleming and redshirt freshman Jada Hart at court one, sophomores Gabby Andrews and Alaina Miller at court two and freshman Ena Shibahara and junior Kristin Wiley at court three.
The decision worked, as the Bruins received wins at No. 1 and No. 3 doubles to secure the point.
[Related: Women’s tennis falls to Baylor 4-3 despite fruitful doubles lineup change]
While the element of surprise was on UCLA’s side, the players also practice often with different doubles partners, which helped them win the point Saturday.
“I practiced with Kristin before we left and I felt pretty good playing with her,” Shibahara said Sunday. “I think switching it up helped us win the doubles point because the other team wasn’t really ready for it. I’m sure they were ready for me and Jada to play (at court) one and the usual lineup.”
Getting out to an early dual-match lead also means the Bruins will only need to win three singles courts instead of four, which would be no easy task considering 17 Pac-12 singles players are ranked and Shibahara is UCLA’s only representative. Stanford, the defending NCAA champion, on the other hand, leads the way with six ranked players while USC, Cal and Arizona State all have multiple as well.
The Bruins have more than held their own at courts one and four – compiling a 14-5 record – but courts two, three, five and six are a combined 14-18. One way the team can turn things around, according to Andrews, is to not get distracted by what’s going on in other matches.
“I think coming into next weekend, we just got to focus on our singles match,” Andrews said after the Baylor loss. “We can’t really look at the scoreboard and see how anybody else is doing because that could be distracting.”
Contributing reports by Angie Forburger, Daily Bruin contributor.