This post was updated Jan. 18 at 9:00 p.m.
As atmospheric rivers drenched Westwood, the Bruins took to the desert to weather their strongest competition of the preseason.
No. 16 UCLA women’s tennis assembled a collective record of 15-17 at the Freeman Memorial Championships in Las Vegas from Jan. 13 to 15. The second and final full-team event of the blue and gold’s preseason slate – and its first contests since early November – featured four other top-20 teams in addition to host UNLV.
Though rain would eventually cut the tournament short, wins were already raining down for one Bruin in particular.
Sophomore Elise Wagle was UCLA’s biggest contributor in the win column, leaving Vegas as the singular Bruin to go undefeated in singles play. After commencing her run in the Venetian Draw with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 defeat of Florida’s Sophie Williams, games won became more and more of a rarity for those who stood in her way.
Wagle turned in a 6-2, 6-4 upset of Oklahoma State’s No. 121 Raquel Gonzalez before once again trimming her number of surrendered games in the final, triumphing 6-0, 6-3 over Aura Fang of UNLV.
Playing her first singles matches since May, Wagle said she had low expectations coming in.
“I was just trying to find my groove, basically,” Wagle said. “As I just went on in the tournament, you could see from the scores, I just felt more and more comfortable with each match.”
Elsewhere at the Frank and Vicki Fertitta Tennis Complex, freshman Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer, junior Vanessa Ong and senior Sasha Vagramov each notched a pair of victories in their respective singles draws. No. 120 Lutkemeyer, after getting bounced in her singles quarterfinal, proceeded to bounce her latter two opponents in consolation play, upending Florida’s Rachel Gailis 7-5, 6-3 and Ana Geller of Stanford 6-2, 6-3.
Ong and Vagramov were set to become teammates-turned-opponents in the Wynn Consolation Final, but tournament officials stepped in and stopped the Bruin versus Bruin matchup from coming to fruition.
“I was actually pretty surprised, I’m not even sure how it happened,” Ong said. “I was warming up for doubles and (coach) Stella (Sampras Webster) told us we were going to play someone else, so I didn’t think much of it.”
On the doubles front, though, there were no undefeated pairs of Bruins to grab the spotlight.
UCLA posted a team mark of 2-6 in contrast to its 13-11 performance in singles play. Half of the roster went winless in doubles action while the other half was unable to secure more than one victory.
Sophomore Kimmi Hance retired from her third singles match of the tournament with Oklahoma State’s Lucia Peyre holding a 6-5 first-set lead. Hance had split her former two singles contests and two doubles matches, notching a 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 win over Bunyawi Thamchaiwat of Pepperdine and forming a No. 11-ranked tandem with Wagle to hand a 7-5 defeat to Florida’s No. 58-ranked pair of Gailis and Bente Spee.
Sampras Webster said the recurrent injury, which first forced Hance to retire at the ITA National Fall Championships in early November, is something her staff will be paying closer attention to moving forward.
“It’s just something that’s kind of nagging, and as tournaments go on, it’s something we’re going to have to manage better,” Sampras Webster said. “She played a lot over the break and had a lot of success in tournaments, but it was super cold in Vegas, and it just wasn’t the best thing for her injury.”
An All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention in 2022, Hance topped UCLA’s dual-match wins leaderboard, riding double-digit win streaks in both formats to a 24-2 mark. She is expected to contend with Vagramov for the No. 1 singles spot this season after spending much of her freshman campaign at No. 4.
The dual-match season will officially be underway for UCLA on Jan. 25 when it hosts Loyola Marymount – the program which, in last year’s home opener for the blue and gold, won its first-ever match in the two-decade-plus history between the two schools.
Comments are closed.