COURTNEY STEWART Mariko Fritz-Krockow
returns the ball during a match against USC on Friday.
By Jason Saltoun Ebin
Daily Bruin Contributor
Just when things seemed to be looking up for the UCLA
women’s tennis team (5-12, 2-1 Pac 10) after ending a
10-match skid and putting two wins together, the unexpected
happened in the form of a shower door.
On the Tuesday night after the Bruins beat Loyola 6-1 in their
March 27 match, UCLA No. 1 singles player sophomore Sara Walker
injured her foot when her shower door came off its hinges.
Walker bruised her foot and was unable to compete with two big
matches coming up and the Bruins about to enter a battle for the
right to claim Los Angeles.
“I was in shock,” Head Coach Sampras recalled after
hearing about how Walker became injured.
Consequently, the Bruins dropped their next two matches against
Southern California and Pepperdine.
UCLA, led by senior co-captain Jennifer Donahue, went into
spring break with a thrilling 4-3 win over Arizona on March 17.
With two matches left against Arizona and the Bruins about to
lose one of the two at No. 3 singles, the match was up to Donahue.
But she had been in that situation before and this time was not
going to let the opportunity slip away. She pulled out a 6-1,
7-6(6) win over Arizona’s Joanna Buczkowska to seal the
win.
“It was huge for her (Donahue) to win the deciding
match,” Sampras said. “She never lost faith and kept
plugging away.”
UCLA carried that momentum into the break to pick up its second
consecutive win with a 6-1 win over Loyola March 27.
“It was a good score and the way we should beat
them,” Sampras said.
Then the shower door fell.
At USC, the Trojans handed the Walker-less Bruins their first
Pac-10 loss of the season with a convincing 6-1 win. But without
the aid of loud and obnoxious Trojan fans, who made the tennis
match look more like the Sports Arena after a Bruin basketball
victory ““ the USC assistant even had to come over and ask
them to stop during the match ““ the final score could have
been much closer.
After being swept in doubles, the Bruins came out fired up for
singles play but only freshmen Mariko Fritz-Krockow could pull out
a win. After dropping the first set 6-2 to sophomore Tiffany
Brymer, Fritz-Krockow stormed back to win the next two sets 6-3,
6-2.
“I just got so mad (at the Trojan fans), it just
translated into pure energy,” Fritz-Krockow said. “I
just didn’t want to lose to Southern California.”
UCLA was not done facing Southern California teams yet, with No.
17 Pepperdine (14-7 overall) coming to Westwood less than 48 hours
later. But with Walker out, avenging their loss to the Waves back
in February seemed unlikely.
But an upset was still a distinct possibility. With four of the
eight-
member Pepperdine team injured, including the Waves’ No. 1
and No. 3 singles players, the Bruins found themselves in a
familiar situation. The only difference was that this time, the
Bruins were the ones fighting for the upset.
But the Waves showed up to play. After falling behind in all
three doubles matches, Pepperdine turned the match around by
winning the doubles point with victories at Nos. 2 and 3
doubles.
The Bruins fought back in singles with easy wins by two
freshmen, Lauren Fisher and Fritz-Krockow, but the wins were not
enough. Only junior Petya Marinova could manage another win for the
Bruins and the Waves escaped with a 4-3 win.