UCLA women’s tennis beats Cal with help of Andrea Remynse
By Daniel Khayat
Feb. 28, 2010 11:31 p.m.
UCLA’s Andrea Remynse was locked in a fierce showdown with Cal’s Mari Andersson well past 4 p.m. on Sunday at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
All the other matches had concluded, with the Golden Bears taking the doubles point and two singles matches and the Bruins claiming the three backcourt points to tie the score at 3-3.
As the dual match entered its sixth hour ““ it had started at 11 a.m. after being rained out Saturday ““ the junior Remynse clung to a 4-2 third-set lead, and both she and her opponent were exhausted from the marathon length of their bout.
Game after game passed, and finally Remynse was presented with match point at 5-4.
And it was the perfect time for her mother to check in on her.
Steve Webster, husband of UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster, received a text message from Remynse’s mother just as Remynse was about to serve for the match. But instead of responding, Steve Webster called the elder Remynse and let her listen-in as her daughter clinched the victory.
“I just committed to playing aggressively, no matter what (Andersson) was doing,” Remynse said.
Remynse’s 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 triumph was the crowning achievement for No. 4 UCLA (11-1, 2-0 Pac-10) as it got past No. 3 California (8-2, 2-1). With their 6-1 win over No. 11 Stanford (7-1, 0-1) on Friday, the Bruins recorded their first Cal-Stanford sweep since Sampras Webster took over the head coaching position in 1996.
“We haven’t had a weekend like this in a long, long time to be able to (win) back-to-back (matches against) Cal and Stanford,” Sampras Webster said.
In addition to Remynse’s big weekend, UCLA can thank the lower half of the singles lineup for its stellar performance. Junior Maya Johansson and freshmen Pamela Montez and Stephanie Hoffpauir went a combined 6-0 in singles this weekend, propelling the Bruins to their win over Stanford on Friday and putting Remynse in position to be the hero on Sunday.
The Bears had a commanding 3-1 lead after UCLA’s top two players, senior Yasmin Schnack and junior Noelle Hickey, each fell in straight sets to California sophomore Jana Juricova and junior Marina Cossou, respectively, before Montez and Johansson pulled through to even the match. Hoffpauir had already posted a relatively effortless 6-2, 6-0 win at Court No. 6, the first of any singles match to reach its end.
“Those girls in the back, they deserve everything because they are the rock of this team,” Remynse said of her teammates. “We expect them to win when they go out there, and Maya coming back (to win her No. 5 match) made me fight because I knew that we were still in it as a team and that my match was going to count.”
Johansson and Montez each extended their eight-match singles winning streaks.
“The key thing for us is that we’re confident,” Johansson said. “Every time I step on the court, I focus on my attitude, my concentration and my effort.”
Remynse had struggled before this weekend, dropping four straight singles matches before turning it around against the Bay Area schools.
“Honestly, I feel really good,” Remynse said. “Before this weekend, I was really not confident. I had lost four straight matches, and I lost a match against Cal Poly, which I shouldn’t do. This is going to hopefully turn my year around for me.”
