ATHENS, Ga. “”mdash; The No. 12 UCLA women’s tennis team gave each remaining team in the NCAA Championships great reason to worry after a dominating 4-0 win over No. 5 Northwestern on Friday.
The Bruins (19-7) showed yet again that they can not only hang with the top teams, but beat them as well by overthrowing their third consecutive top-10 opponent in the last month.
"People started to realize it at the end of the year, especially since we’ve had a couple of good matches lately against Cal and Stanford," senior Alex McGoodwin said. "We’ve been known as the team with a lot of talent but didn’t necessarily put it together, but now we’re starting to put it together."
And for the Bruins, there couldn’t be a better time. With the decisive win over the Wildcats, UCLA set up a meeting in the quarterfinals with No. 4 Florida on Sunday morning, a rematch of last year’s Round of 16 in which the Gators eliminated the Bruins.
Against Northwestern, the Bruins got off to the start they were hoping for, capturing the doubles point and the confidence they needed to successfully avenge a loss suffered at the hands of the Wildcats earlier in the season at the National Team Indoors.
Once the doubles play had concluded though, the Bruins fell behind early in the first sets on five of the six singles courts before regaining their composure and the momentum.
"We got down initially kind of quickly in the first sets on the first four courts, but everyone turned it around and we started feeling really confident, especially when we saw everyone win their first sets," junior Tracy Lin said.
From there, the Bruins dominated the rest of the match, quickly wrapping up play when freshman Yasmin Schnack clinched the match for her team for the second straight time ““- the last one being against No. 17 Florida State in the Round of 32.
UCLA also got wins from Lin and McGoodwin, while sophomore Ashley Joelson was one point away from winning her match as well before Schnack finished the Wildcats’ season.
With the win, the Bruins can now focus their attention on a Gator team that struggled to beat No. 13 Baylor in the Round of 16 ““ a team UCLA beat handedly during the regular season, 6-1.
Florida and Northwestern are two teams that the Bruins will have to get through in order to advance deep into the tournament, which they know they are capable of doing.
"Victory is sweetest when it’s revenge and that’s what this tournament is all about for us," Lin said.