The match was all but won when freshman Andrea Remynse became the player to watch when she took an impressive 6-2, 5-0 lead.
With the No. 8 UCLA women’s tennis team leading No. 12 Fresno State 3-2, all the attention was focused on court No. 3, where Remynse was just four points from clinching the Bruins’ win.
However, the Bulldogs’ Renata Kucerkova came out with a strategy that not only prolonged the outcome but made the match frustrating to watch and, for Remynse, to play.
“It was awful,” Remynse said. “I wasn’t expecting that one at all because I was up 5-0. I was extremely frustrated.”
Kucerkova came out after the 5-0 changeover and began to push the ball, lobbing ground strokes deep to Remynse, who was forced to endure points that lasted for several minutes each.
Remynse struggled to maintain her composure, losing three straight games, until UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster gave some advice to the freshman.
“Stella helped me,” Remynse said. “She just told me to shut up, and I stopped going for too much, and eventually it worked and I won that last game.”
Remynse’s win clinched the win for the Bruins, who improved to 7-1 overall this season. Fresno State fell to 2-2.
The stage for the wins in singles was set by an impressive come-from-behind win by senior Elizabeth Lumpkin and sophomore Stephanie Wetmore in doubles play on court No. 2.
After falling behind 3-1, the Bruin duo reeled off six straight games to take a 7-3 lead and eventually won 8-5 to clinch the doubles point.
“I think Stephanie and Liz did a great job coming back in that second doubles match and winning it,” Webster said. “Winning that doubles point made a huge difference going into the singles matches, because Fresno State has really good doubles teams, and we knew that point could go either way coming into the match.”
Lumpkin also came back in singles play after going down 5-2 in the first set to Fresno State’s Jacqueline Haskett.
Just as she was able to do in doubles with Wetmore, Lumpkin won the first set by winning five straight games before cruising to a 7-5, 6-2 win to put the Bruins back ahead of the Bulldogs 3-2 after seniors Tracy Lin and Riza Zalameda had lost their matches.
Lin in particular struggled because of an injury sustained at the USTA/ITA National Team Indoors in Wisconsin last week. The injury seemed to affect her serve, forcing her to shorten her backswing.
“The girl she played played extremely well,” Webster said. “Tracy just didn’t play her best. She was just very rusty, not very sharp out there.”