This post was updated Jan. 17 at 11:58 p.m.
The Fernandez name had gone global.
While her sister opened her singles run at the Australian Open, freshman Bianca Fernandez battled on Las Vegas courts. It was a familiar setting for the former, a seven-year WTA veteran, and anything but for the latter.
That didn’t stop the newly minted college athlete from assembling a winning debut.
The Fernandez of No. 16 UCLA women’s tennis won the Bellagio Draw of the Freeman Memorial Championships to cap her first-ever collegiate match play. Spanning Friday to Sunday, her trio of wins against zero losses in the singles bracket was a feat matched by three other Bruins, all of whom participated in their final tune-up tournament before the start of the dual-match season.
“I’ve been training for the past couple of months, and I just had to execute during my points,” Fernandez said. “Whether I did it successfully or not – that’s of no consolation.”
A late addition to the roster after signing Nov. 10, Fernandez didn’t enter with the benefit of a fall season under her belt. And the task ahead of her was no cakewalk.
Three top-100 players awaited. All of them hailed from top-10 programs.
But the Canadian newcomer defeated the lot.
Sandwiching a three-set bout with a pair of straight-setters, Fernandez opened with a 6-3, 7-5 showing against No. 60 Ayumi Miyamoto from Oklahoma State. She then upended No. 96 Janice Tjen of Pepperdine 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-1, an initially tight contest that saw Fernandez assert her game at the close.
Fernandez saved her finest performance for last, defeating Oklahoma State’s No. 53 Lucia Peyre – her highest-ranked opponent of the tournament – 6-1, 6-0. She allowed just two games across her final three sets in Las Vegas.
“We’re still learning a lot of Bia, and so far, she’s just done a great job of taking care of what she needs to take care of,” said coach Stella Sampras Webster. “Her maturity and her experience have helped her, just being out there in the world and dealing with the adversity that comes with traveling all over.”
The weekend didn’t belong to Fernandez alone. Considering the efforts of fellow underclassmen, it was a showcase of Bruin youth.
Freshman Ahmani Guichard and sophomore Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer, in addition to winning all three of their respective singles matches, were the highlight of doubles play for UCLA. The pair claimed the Caesars Draw title, never allowing more than four games to each of the three tandems they were pitted against.
After opening with a 6-3 defeat of UNLV’s Aura Fang and Nikol Mircheva, the Bruin pair mirrored their performance against Oklahoma State’s Raquel Gonzalez and Miyamoto. Just like Fernandez, they came into their own at the very end, winning a 6-1 decision against UNLV’s Coco Zhao and Cindy Hu.
The Guichard-Lutkemeyer partnership, though, was preexisting. Entering 2024 with a combined 4-1 record from the fall, the duo is now 7-1.
“I love her energy. I love our chemistry together,” Lutkemeyer said. “I’m loving just getting to know each other as players and seeing where we can go as a team.”
Outside of Fernandez, Guichard and Lutkemeyer’s combined 15-1 mark, all other Bruins were 8-6 at the Freeman Memorial Championships, including a fourth 3-0 singles record off the racket of junior Elise Wagle.
But before all those numbers piled up, the Bruins got a scare.
Reigning NCAA singles champion and sophomore Tian Fangran was pulled from match play in Las Vegas after dropping her tournament-opening doubles contest alongside Fernandez.
“I was concerned about her body because of just how much she’s played. Even over the break, she’s trained really hard,” Sampras Webster said. “She just felt a little something in the warm-up before doubles.”
The move to rest UCLA’s No. 1 option, and the nation’s No. 4 singles player, will ensure her availability to start the dual-match season, according to Sampras Webster.
Friday’s home opener and No. 7 Texas await.
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