Coach Stella Sampras Webster acknowledged that Wednesday’s
match was different than the others for her women’s tennis
team. Nevertheless, the result had to seem quite familiar to the
Bruin coach.
UCLA’s 4-3 loss at USC marked the team’s sixth
consecutive regular season setback to its crosstown rival and its
third straight loss to a top-15 team this season.
But despite the team’s early struggles against elite
opponents, Sampras Webster isn’t terribly concerned.
“We can’t panic at this point,” she said.
“There are so many matches ahead of us.”
The Bruins’ track record indicates why there may not be an
added sense of urgency just yet. In two of the last four years, the
Bruins (6-4, 0-1 Pac-10) have dropped regular season matches to the
Trojans (7-1, 1-0) before beating them in the NCAA Tournament. For
the 10th-ranked Bruins, it’s a reason to still be optimistic.
For the No. 13 Trojans, it’s just been bad luck at the most
crucial times.
“You can never control when you peak or don’t
peak,” USC coach Richard Gallien said. “You just try to
win as many as you can.”
Gallien said that if the two teams played each other 10 times,
they would each win five times. Yet, for all the splitting the
teams have done in the past few years, the Trojans seem to get the
best of the Bruins during the regular season.
On Wednesday, the final score suggested some tense final
moments, but UCLA didn’t get onto the scoreboard until
USC’s Lindsey Nelson was a couple points away from clinching
the match against Riza Zalameda on Court 2.
Besides attributing the road environment and poor footwork for
some of her team’s struggles, Sampras Webster also felt some
of the individual match-ups didn’t suit her team well.
“Players play well against certain game styles,”
Sampras Webster said. “When they play against a player with a
game style they don’t like, they have problems.”
However, it was a player who has had a good deal of success
against her opponent who seemed to have the most struggles on
Wednesday. Although Zalameda had gotten the best of fellow freshman
Nelson earlier this fall and in the California Interscholastic
Federation finals last year, she fell short in the first dual-match
meeting between the two rivals, falling 6-2, 6-3.
“I stayed back too much and let her dictate the
points,” Zalameda said. “I was constantly on the run,
and that’s not my strength. I’m strong when I’m
aggressive.”
Nelson used a powerful groundstroke game to overwhelm Zalameda
at times, forcing her off the court and playing at a frantic pace.
On match point, she drilled a serve return to the corner that
forced Zalameda to slice her backhand long.
“I was feeling my way into it rather than being pumped
right at the beginning,” Zalameda said. “I feel
confident I’m going to learn from it. It’s something to
look forward to get revenge.”
Getting that revenge against the Trojans hasn’t been an
issue for the Bruins in the past. Yet with the team starting three
freshmen who haven’t taken part in those past victories,
it’s far from anything to take for granted.
“It’s important for the freshmen to get that feel,
and I don’t know if they do yet,” Sampras Webster
said.
She’ll have another chance to find out in the teams’
rematch in April.