Tennis prepares for indoor meets
By Daniel Khayat
Feb. 11, 2009 10:36 p.m.
Rain has played the role of spoiler for the No. 3 UCLA women’s tennis team over the past two weeks. At times, it forced the team inside to condition rather than practice their game at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. Rain was also the reason for the cancellation of the Bruins’ match against UC Irvine that was scheduled for Feb. 5.
But uncooperative weather is one thing the Bruins will not have to worry about when they head to Madison, Wis. today to compete in the National Team Indoor Championships starting Friday.
The 16-team triple-elimination tournament lasts until Monday, which presents the likely scenario that a given team will play four matches in four days. Faced with this daunting possibility, the Bruins can thank the skies for the extra conditioning workouts.
“We certainly didn’t take any of those rainy days off,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “If it’s raining or not, we’re going to condition.”
Still, senior Ashley Joelson admits that while two consecutive matches are manageable, four might be pushing it.
“You get extremely tired,” she said. “It’s at the beginning of the season, and we’re probably not at our peak conditioning yet, so to have to go in and play four matches day after day, that’s very difficult.”
UCLA (4-0) has steamrollered the competition thus far in 2009, mowing down its four opponents by an aggregate score of 20-3. However, 15 of the 16 teams playing at the indoor championships are ranked in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s top 18 (the one exception being the No. 68 Wisconsin Badgers, who are hosting the tournament and received an automatic bid).
“The one thing that we have to do is keep that mindset,” Joelson said. “Just because we’re playing a higher-ranked opponent, we still have to go in thinking we can and will dominate that team. When you play a higher-ranked team you feel a little bit more pressure because you know it’s going to be a closer match. But we have to go in there and treat it like it’s just any other match.”
UCLA opens up tournament play against No. 10 Florida (4-1). The Bruins finished second in the indoor championships in 1990 and 1995 but have never won the title. No. 7 Georgia Tech won the past two tournaments.
The Pac-10 boasts the second-most teams at the tournament with four. (The ACC has five.) UCLA, No. 2 California, nine-time tournament winner No. 5 Stanford, and No. 9 USC were drawn in separate brackets, giving the conference the opportunity to sweep the top three spots when all is said and done.
Another modification the Bruins will have to make is the switch to playing under a roof. The Bruins are accustomed to playing on the hard courts at the LATC, but the indoor courts in Wisconsin present a different setting.
“The courts and the shots are going to be faster,” Sampras Webster said. “So just making the adjustments to go indoors was the biggest thing (we prepared for).”
The indoor championships will also serve as a gauge of the Bruins’ current playing level and its outcome will have quite an effect on where UCLA is ranked after play wraps up. According to Joelson, the team’s No. 3 ranking is largely based on the 2008 national championship team’s accomplishments.
“This team this year is a whole new team,” Joelson said. “Going to (the indoor championships) will be a good test to see where this year’s team actually is and where we should be ranked going into the (Pac-10) season.”
“It definitely is not a barometer of who’s going to win NCAAs, but I think it’s a barometer of who’s playing well right now,” Sampras Webster said.
“There is no excuse for us not to do well there, so we’re excited to compete.”
