Baylor’s home state of Texas may talk big, but UCLA’s women’s tennis team played the role of bully on Sunday. The No. 3 Bruins followed up the team’s first ITA National Team Indoor Championship title with a 4-0 road pounding of the No 8. Baylor Bears.
UCLA cruised to its fifth win over a top-20 opponent on the strength of three straight set singles thrashings after capturing the doubles point.
Coach Stella Sampras Webster plans on maintaining and improving upon her best start in 14 years by having her team impose its will on other squads after gaining leads.
“You don’t ever want to have to get into the battle after winning the first set; (other players) are too good, and can take advantage of any letdowns. You’ve got to stay on your opponents and not let them into the game, because that just builds up their confidence,” Sampras Webster said.
“(Our girls) did a great job staying on their opponents and not letting them into the match. … They dominated the first set, and there’s that chance of a letdown, but they stayed on them and were able to close it out pretty quick.”
UCLA’s efficient beat down of Baylor embodied Sampras Webster’s intent of pushing around other teams that are down.
Freshmen Robin Anderson, Kaitlin Ray and Chanelle Van Nguyen each surrendered at least 2 inches of height to their respective opponents on Sunday, but no more than two games in a single set.
On the doubles side, the senior pairing of Carling Seguso and McCall Jones ate their opponent’s lunch, easily grabbing an 8-1 victory. Nguyen joined junior Pamela Montez for only the second time this season to notch the doubles-clinching 8-4 win after a slow start that saw the schools’ eventual prevailing roles reverse early. The duo pulled out the victory in large part because of their ability to aggressively return their opponents’ serves.
“We were a little shaky in the beginning, “¦ but we fought hard, and that’s how we won in the end,” Nguyen said. “(The plan was to) make our returns aggressive so that we can have a good put-away volley and be aggressive at the net. We executed our plan well.”
Anderson, the Most Outstanding Player of the 2012 ITA National Team Indoor Championship, has seen four of her matches this year go into either three sets or tiebreakers after winning the first set, and the freshman knows the importance of strong finishes.
“Even though I was cheering for my own teammates, I still focused more on my court, and getting my court done,” said Anderson, who recognized that keeping her attention focused on her own play has come more naturally as the season has progressed.
Ray, who came into the match as the newly ranked No. 61 player in the nation, also felt that staying in the moment of the game helped in the quick victory (6-1, 6-2) against Baylor.
“It was neat to see my hard work pay off “¦ but it needs to be something that motivates me to take it one day at a time and work to get better,” Ray said of her ranking.
Staying focused amid earning accolades could be a recurring theme for a UCLA team that placed four players on the ITA All-Tournament team: Anderson, Ray, Nguyen and freshman Skylar Morton received singles honors for their efforts last weekend.
UCLA’s triumph over Baylor concludes non-conference competition, a segment of the schedule that will give all players the opportunity to gain experience in finishing sets. The Bruins have only played three matches to completion thus far.
“(On Sunday) we decided that (we were) not going to risk anything in (that) weather. It just made sense to play it out to four, but in the Pac-12 we’ll play our matches out,” Sampras Webster said.
“We want everyone to keep improving and keep getting better, getting all that experience now so they’ll be prepared,” she said.
Ray finds that the team’s commitment to preparation builds an internal fight that compensates for any lack of in-game experiences.
“I feel like we work really hard at practice and that shows when we play matches, especially at Indoors. We out-competed people and wanted it more. You can see it on each court how everyone’s fighting really hard,” she said.