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Women’s tennis team downs Arizona schools, looks to remain undefeated as season nears end

Freshman Robin Anderson and the top-ranked UCLA women’s tennis team defeated Arizona and Arizona State at home in the Los Angeles Tennis Center over the weekend.

Women's Tennis

UCLA 4
ARIZONA STATE 0

UCLA 5
ARIZONA 2

Behind the Score:

20-0
The Bruins' best start since 1987

19
UCLA has won the doubles point 19 times in 20 matches

24
Freshman Kaitlin Ray stretches her winning streak to 24

By Susana Vasquez

April 9, 2012 12:49 a.m.

While this past week marked the beginning of the spring quarter for every UCLA student, the No. 1 women’s tennis team’s season is nearing an end as it had its third and second to last home matches this past weekend.

While UCLA notched two important victories, blanking Arizona State 4-0 on Friday and beating Arizona 5-2 on Saturday, coach Stella Sampras Webster did not let the Bruins take them for granted.

“We definitely didn’t take them lightly. We knew we had to work, and our team did a great job doing that,” Sampras Webster said.

The victory against the Sun Devils came swiftly when ASU senior Sianna Simmons retired because of an injury, giving the Bruins the opportunity to claim the doubles point with one more win from either court No. 1 or No. 2.

The 11th-ranked freshman tandem of Robin Anderson and Skylar Morton notched the doubles point downing Arizona State’s Jacqueline Cako and Hannah James on court No. 1.

Simmons’ injury hurt the Sun Devils’ lineup as they only had five healthy players, giving UCLA a 2-0 lead going into singles.

UCLA’s clinching points came from the racquets of freshmen Kaitlin Ray and Morton in straight sets.

The match against Arizona was a much more competitive bout. After the Bruins pulled off the doubles point, winning on all three courts, the Wildcats came out strong in singles, winning on courts No. 4 and 5 after the Bruins had already sealed the match.

“I thought that everybody played better today, and hopefully we can continue to get better and play well when we play against various teams and see what happens,” Anderson said.

UCLA will now go on the road to take on conference opponents Cal and Stanford this weekend. Senior McCall Jones recognizes the level of play Cal and Stanford have, but she believes in UCLA’s abilities.

“It would be a really good confidence booster for us (to beat Cal and Stanford). It’s important, but I’m really not expecting anything less. I know that we can defeat them,” Jones said.

With these two victories, the Bruins continue with their undefeated season, joining Stanford as the only two teams without a loss this season. But for Sampras Webster, having an undefeated season is not the team’s priority.

“It would be nice (to be undefeated), but if we do or we don’t it doesn’t make a difference because we obviously want to be our best. We’d love to get a ring, we’d love to win a national championship,” Sampras Webster said. “We just want to take each match at a time and keep getting better and be at our best in May.”

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Susana Vasquez
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