By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Contributor
Vindication in two forms is on the mind of the UCLA
women’s tennis team as it gets ready for the NCAA Round of 16
today at Pepperdine University.
The No. 9 Bruins (16-8, 6-2 Pac-10) take on the No. 7 Texas
Longhorns at 5 p.m. at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center. The match
closes out a day chock full of action, as all 16 teams play,
starting at 10 a.m.
UCLA defeated Texas in Austin on March 4 by a score of 5-4. The
Bruins fell behind 4-2 entering the doubles matches but swept all
three to steal the one point victory from the higher-ranked home
team.
But the real history between these two squads is in postseason
play, particularly in the 1997 and 1998 NCAA Championships. Texas
ousted UCLA on both occasions, and left the Bruins hungry for a
postseason win over the Longhorns.
“It’s kind of ironic, this is our third out of four
years playing Texas,” head coach Stella Sampras said.
“I have some seniors on the team who are anxious to play and
beat them.”
The Longhorns don’t figure to go down easily, however.
Their loss to the Bruins came without the services of then-No. 1
player Michelle Faucher, who was unable to play because of a
shoulder injury. In addition, Texas has won 17 matches in a row,
including a 5-0 blanking of then-No. 2 Pepperdine and a 34-0
combined score against its last 5 opponents.
The Bruins come into the contest with considerable firepower of
their own. They breezed by Boston University and Georgia Tech over
the weekend by scores of 6-0, and finished the regular season in
second place in the Pac-10, arguably the nation’s most
competitive conference.
“Its nice to have those matches under out belt,”
Sampras said. “It’s an advantage to play regionals.
Hopefully those matches will calm some nerves so we can just go out
and play.”
The Bruins also go into battle with No. 2-ranked singles player
Sara Walker, a freshman who won the main singles draw of the Pac-10
Championships. She has posted a 35-7 record this season in dual
match play and was named Pac-10 Freshman of the Year last week.
After the team played Texas earlier this season, Walker, who is
originally from El Paso, said, “It is hard to come out and
play against Texas. You just have to get past all that.”
She and the Bruins will try and do that again Thursday.
UCLA also seems to be playing now with a cohesiveness unseen
earlier in the season. Senior Annica Cooper and freshman Abigail
Spears were recently honored with All-Pac-10 awards, role players
Elizabeth Schmidt and Catherine Hawley turned in impressive
victories over the weekend, and doubles play has been stellar all
season.
“We all did what we needed to do individually but the
support was still there to get it done together,” Hawley said
after last week’s matches.
But as the Bruins play their match against Texas, they may see
the ominous shadow of the Stanford tree lurking in the distance.
The No. 1, Pac-10 champion and undefeated Cardinal takes on No. 14
Northwestern for a berth in the quarterfinals and should both the
Bruins and Cardinal win, they will meet in the next round.
The Bruins lost both their matches to Stanford earlier this year
7-2, but came within a few games of winning all three doubles
matches and taking the win in the latter contest. They feel that
they are on par with the nation’s top-ranked team.
“We know that we have a pretty tough draw,” Sampras
said. “But you have to take it one match at a
time.”
The winner of the UCLA-Texas match will meet the winner of the
Stanford-Northwestern match on Friday at 2 p.m. The national
championship match is slated for Sunday at 1 p.m.
With contributions from Rekha Rao, Daily Bruin Contributor.