Bruin women’s tennis team hopes to repeat its success at Pac-10 Championships

The regular season is two weeks past its completion and the NCAA Tournament is barely visible on the horizon, but that isn’t stopping the UCLA women’s tennis team from getting itself in the championship mood.

The Pac-10 Championships, an individual tournament in Ojai, kicks off today, and several Bruins will look to replicate UCLA’s success from last year’s edition of the tournament.

In 2010, the Bruins swept all four of the titles in Ojai, winning both the singles and doubles championships in both the main and invitational draws. UCLA will look to accomplish nothing less this year.

“(Repeating last year’s performance) would be unbelievable,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said. “We could definitely use that to get us through the NCAAs. To finish strong (in Ojai) and have that get us through the regionals would be excellent.”

Former UCLA Bruin Yasmin Schnack stole the show in Ojai a year ago, topping Stanford’s Hilary Barte to win the main singles draw and teaming with then-junior Andrea Remynse to capture the main doubles title over Barte and fellow Cardinal Lindsay Burdette.

Then-sophomores Nina Pantic and Carling Seguso faced off against each other in an all-Bruin matchup in the invitational singles final, with Pantic ultimately knocking off her teammate 6-2, 6-0. Seguso would go on to win the invitational doubles draw with former Bruin Stephanie Hoffpauir, then a freshman.

Senior Noelle Hickey admits that while knowing a Bruin is nearly guaranteed to win a title going into the final match is nice, rooting for one over the other is strictly forbidden.

“You can’t root for anybody,” Hickey said with a laugh. “You’ve got to stay silent or just say, “˜Go, Bruins!’ It’s not fun to play a teammate; it’s really tough. But it’s best if we play each other at the end, because that means we’re still in it.”

If it happens that two Bruins face each other again this time around, Sampras Webster knows that tensions can get high between two players who know each other’s strengths and weaknesses inside and out.

“We just hope that they come off shaking hands and talking,” Sampras Webster said.

Hickey and her teammates are thankful for the opportunity to get a few more matches under their belts before the NCAA Tournament begins on May 19 in Palo Alto.

“It’s a great chance for people who maybe don’t play No. 1 or 2 to really get some good wins and boost up their ranking, and maybe get into the NCAA Tournament individually,” Hickey said.

While the Pac-10 Championships may not be of the utmost importance with regard to the success of the season as a whole, many players see it as a way to stay in shape during a long stretch of time otherwise void of any true matches.

“We’re going to play some really good girls from the Pac-10 that we know,” senior Maya Johansson said. “It’s always really good preparation for regionals when you have good matches.”