Thursday, April 9, 1998
UCLA tries not to underestimate seemingly innocuous
adversaries
WTENNIS: After glorious upset vs. Stanford, UCLA must face all
opponents with same intensity
By David Arnold
Daily Bruin Contributor
When you’re coming off the biggest upset of the year, it’s
natural to not feel the same intensity the next game.
That’s what UCLA women’s tennis head coach Stella Sampras hopes
to avoid this weekend when her Bruins play host to Washington,
Washington State and Oregon.
Last Friday, the Bruins pulled off an amazing upset at home
against the then undefeated and top-ranked Stanford Cardinal. It
was a squeaker, with the Bruins coming out on top 5-4 as they won
the final two singles and doubles matches of the day.
It was, unfortunately, not a feat that can be repeated. And thus
the team fell to No. 8 Cal two days later on the short end of the
same 5-4 margin.
Strangely, the latest ITA National rankings don’t include last
week’s results, and have the Bruins dropping from 14th to 16th and
the Cardinal remaining on top.
As an indicator of how easy it might be for the Bruins to
underestimate this weekend’s opponents, those same rankings have
Washington at No. 44, Washington State at No. 62, and do not
include Oregon in the top 75 at all.
The Husky women stand at 12-4 and have two players in the
individual rankings – Kristina Kraszewski at 27th, and Zuzana
Stunova at 64th.
However, they pose the only genuine threat to the Bruins Easter
weekend. The Cougars stand at the brink with a 8-7 record, and one
player ranked 110th (Tunde Nagy), and the Ducks waddle in the
Southland with a 3-14 record while their top player (Alina
Wygonowka) is 7-9 for the season.
In contrast the Bruins are 11-8 in dual matches but can boast a
top 20 ranking, two players in the top 40 (Annica Cooper at 14th,
and Cristina Popescu at 36th), but not a singles player under .500
for the season.
In defense of the Bruins’ next opponents, Washington’s best
players are freshmen and sophomores, WSU’s Nagy tied the school
record for victories in a season this year and is the team’s only
senior, and Oregon has had a serious injury problem from the
get-go.
So serious, in fact, that the Ducks have had to default at least
once in 11 of their 17 matches. Last week against the Huskies,
junior Andrea Petrovic could barely walk after her match, and
fellow junior Shanelle Kaneshiro had to serve underhanded.
This weekend’s matches are critical for the Bruins’ rankings as
they attempt to prove that they deserve to be mentioned alongside
the Cardinal and the nation’s elite, and that last week’s victory
was the upset that it seemed.