Women’s tennis suffers an early exit from the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships
Sophomore Pamela Montez won her singles match against No. 9 Miami on Saturday after losing to Clemson on Friday at the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va. They will take on Pepperdine Friday in Malibu.
Women’s Tennis
Baylor 4
UCLA 2
UCLA 4
Miami 2
Clemson 4
UCLA 3
By Jason Wang
Feb. 22, 2011 2:20 a.m.
Things did not go quite as expected for the UCLA women’s tennis team this weekend, as the Bruins’ hopes for a national team indoors title were quickly dashed with a first-round loss on Friday to Clemson, 4-3.
The tournament began auspiciously in Charlottesvile, Va., as the No. 7 Bruins won the doubles point, an element the team had been focusing on in the past few weeks of practice. But the Bruins lost that momentum soon thereafter, dropping the majority of the singles matches against the No. 12 Tigers.
“It was our first match indoors, and we’re not making an excuse for it, but we just didn’t play very well,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “Clemson just played better than we did.”
The early exit came as a surprise to the Bruins (7-4), who made the quarterfinals just a season ago as an unseeded team. Despite the surprising loss, UCLA was able to bounce back the following day with a 4-2 win over No. 9 Miami in the consolation bracket.
With such a short time span between matches, the Bruins had made sure not to mull over the Clemson loss.
“I think the main thing that we wanted to do was to make sure we weren’t negative or doubted ourselves,” said sophomore Pamela Montez, who won her singles match against Miami after losing in the Clemson match. “It was such a disappointing loss for us, so our main focus was to go out there and forget what happened the day before.”
Statistically, the Miami win was nearly opposite of the Clemson loss. The Bruins gave up the doubles point to the Hurricanes (6-2) but went on to win four of the six singles matches, including straight set victories by Montez, senior Andrea Remynse and freshman Courtney Dolehide. Despite falling behind early, the Bruins made quick work of the Hurricanes and were able to clinch the victory before all the matches were complete.
But UCLA was unable to carry that momentum into the final day of play, leaving Virginia on a sour note by losing to No. 3 Baylor, 4-2. The match against the Bears (5-1) mirrored the match against the Tigers, as the Bruins were once again able to win the doubles point but unable to seal the deal.
Senior Maya Johansson completed a quick 6-1, 6-0 win in court No. 6 to bring the Bruins’ lead up to 2-0. Johansson had the most successful weekend of the Bruins, winning all three of her singles matches. But the Bears quickly responded to Johansson’s win, claiming four consecutive singles matches en route to a comeback victory.
“Every match we played was close, and it doesn’t get much tougher than (losing to) Baylor,” said senior Noelle Hickey, who lost her singles match in a third-set tiebreaker. “It was some of the highest level tennis we’ll get to see all season.”
Despite two close losses in three days, the Bruins are once again using tough losses as fuel to power through the rest of the season.
“Taking these losses early in the season like this, though not considered good, will help us later on,” Hickey said. “This feeling right now will definitely ignite a flame in all of us that we don’t want to feel this way again.”
