The UCLA women’s tennis team played the sixth-ranked team
in the nation on Friday, but passers-by stopping in to check the
Los Angeles Tennis Center scoreboard early on in the match never
would have guessed it.
The No. 7 Bruins dismantled Washington in doubles, and then
picked up some quick wins in singles on the back courts en route
their 5-2 victory.
“We knew we should win in doubles,” said coach
Stella Sampras Webster. “They haven’t played that well.
It was nice to see us take care of business.”
Even if the Huskies’ doubles lineup as a whole isn’t
its strength, they still boast the fourth-ranked duo in the country
in Claire Carter and Dea Sumantri. However, unranked Daniela Bercek
and Lauren Fisher dispatched them easily, 8-3, setting the tone for
the entire match.
“We have good chemistry,” Fisher said. “The
reason we’re not ranked is just because we haven’t
played enough matches yet.”
Following their teammates’ leads, Jackie Carleton and
Feriel Esseghir knocked off Dinka Hadzic and Erin Hoe, 8-5, to
clinch the doubles point for the Bruins. With the first point
already secured, Sarah Gregg and Laura Gordon then scored an 8-7(5)
come-from-behind victory over Monika Kolbovic and Saskia
Nauenberg.
“Whenever you win in doubles, it sets the tide for
singles,” Gordon said.
Gordon is becoming a thorn in the Huskies’ side in
singles. In the team’s meeting last May at the NCAA
Championships, Gordon’s victory in a third-set tie break with
the match tied at three ended Washington’s season and sent
the Bruins to the quarterfinals. Friday, such heroics were not
needed. After a tight first set, Gordon cruised to a 6-4, 6-1 win
over Stephanie Svanfeldt on Court 6.
“I started cutting down on my errors and that’s when
I do my best,” she said.
As quickly as she put Svanfeldt away in the second set, Gordon
was still far from being the first Bruin off the court. Fisher gave
UCLA its first singles point with a swift 6-0, 6-2 win over
Nauenberg. By the time she walked off the court, Bercek was still
playing her first set.
“Win or lose, I’m normally one of the first off the
court,” said Fisher, who did not play against the Huskies
last year because of an elbow injury. “It’s just my
style of play.”
By jumping out to the quick 3-0 lead, the Bruins put the Huskies
in a position where they would need to win the remaining four.
Although Washington capitalized on its lineup’s strength at
the top with wins on courts 1 and 3 to pull the match to 3-2, the
team’s lack of depth kept it from tying the score.
Hadzic’s unforced error on match point against Gregg on Court
4 clinched the match for the Bruins.
“I made her play a lot of balls,” Gregg said of her
6-4, 6-1 win. “She started to get frustrated because she knew
she had to do more with her shots.”
In spite of the lopsided wins on the back courts and in doubles,
the Bruins refused to call the Huskies overrated.
“They did very well at the beginning of the season,”
Sampras Webster said. “They’ll be back.”
Whether the Bruins again face Washington in the NCAA Tournament
remains to be seen, but if they do, another uplifting sign was
their ability to neutralize the top of the Huskies’
lineup.
With the match already in hand, Bercek persevered over Sumantri,
the highest-ranked Husky, on Court 2. After taking the first set
7-5, Bercek dropped the second one 4-6, but rebounded in the
third-set super-tie break, 10-7. It marked the second consecutive
match Bercek won in a super-tie break, defeating Pepperdine’s
Caroline Raba just two days earlier.
“I’m pretty tired,” she said. “The end
of the second set was the worst.”
She and the other Bruins did not have much time for rest, as
they faced Washington State the next day. However, the match did
not require the freshest of bodies. The Bruins defeated the lowly
Cougars 6-1 for their ninth win in the last 10 matches.