By Hannah Gordon
Daily Bruin Contributor
It is hard to know how your opponent will play in a tournament.
Unless, of course, you play against your opponent every day in
practice.
In a surprising turn of events, UCLA’s No. 1 doubles team
of junior Petya Marinova and freshman Lauren Fisher faced
UCLA’s No. 2 doubles team of sophomore Sara Walker and
freshman Mariko Fritz-Krockow in the finals of the Pac-10
Conference Championships.
Walker and Fritz-Krockow upset their teammates 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 to
take the title.
After a disappointing season with a 3-5 record in the Pac-10,
the Bruins surprised everyone by taking home not only the doubles
title, but the team title. The title is determined by the number of
individual matches won by each team at the tournament.
“We were so excited when we both won our semifinals
because it meant we won the Pac-10,” Fisher said.
At the same time, they realized they would have to face each
other as opponents the next day.
“You don’t want to play someone you train with every
day, because they know how you play,” Marinova said.
Fritz-Krockow agreed.
“The whole match must have looked oddly simple because we
anticipated them and they anticipated us,” she said.
To compensate, the players tried to mix up their usual
patterns.
“All of us were changing directions when we
shouldn’t have because we knew where the other person was
going and vice versa,” Fisher said.
Marinova and Fisher won the first set 6-3, but relaxed and
started to slip up and lose consistency. Both are emotional
players, and Walker and Fritz-Krockow capitalized on their
frustration by staying steady and waiting for their opponent to
make the errors, rather than going for the big shots.
“It was the best I’ve seen Mariko and Sara play
together,” said Head Coach Stella Sampras. “Petya and
Lauren couldn’t keep it up in the second and third set, which
was disappointing because they are better than that. They played an
unbelievable match in the semifinals.”
The Bruins performed well in singles as well in order to win the
Pac-10 title. Walker, last year’s Pac-10 singles champion,
advanced to the semifinals, where she lost 6-3, 3-6, 1-6 to Arizona
State’s Adria Engel, the eventual tournament champion.
“Adria is a great player,” Sampras said. “She
got an opening in the second set and started playing better while
Sara lost a little momentum.”
Fisher gave a solid performance in the first two rounds to make
the quarterfinals where she was defeated by USC’s Maureen
Diaz 6-4, 6-3.
“She is the type of player who stays steady at the
baseline and always gets the ball back,” Fisher said of her
opponent, to whom she lost previously this season.
Junior Catherine Hawley fell 6-2, 6-0 in the first round to
California’s Christina Fusano.
In the invitational tournament, Jennifer Donahue, Chelsea
Godbey, and Michelle Steifel all lost their first round matches.
Fritz-Krockow, however, won 7-6, 6-0 in her first round match
before falling 6-3, 6-1 in the second round to Washington’s
Erin Hoe.