Women’s tennis to face Arizona schools as season winds down

Practice, matches, repeat. Practice, matches, repeat.

For the past two weekends, the UCLA women’s tennis team has nestled into a routine of daily weekday practices being capped off by back-to-back weekend matches. And this week’s agenda calls for exactly the same.

A stark change from the slower-paced schedule of matches that made up the earlier part of the season, UCLA’s focus now rests on two teams the Bruins have yet to face this season.

This Friday and Saturday, No. 3 UCLA plays host to the Arizona members of the Pac-12 by welcoming Arizona State (18-4) and Arizona (16-3) to the Los Angeles Tennis Center.

In these two of the team’s final three matches, the Bruins enter the homestretch of their regular season poised to remain motivated despite their recently busy schedule.

Coach Stella Sampras Webster said the key to ending this season strong all rests with the team’s energy.

“We need to improve on having energy throughout the day starting with doubles and continuing through singles,” she said. “It’s hard, because it takes a lot of energy to play in this many matches, but it’s important for the team to remain focused, and it’s energy that keeps them focused.”

This weekend’s matches against Arizona and Arizona State mark the 21st and 22nd dual matches for UCLA this season, all of which have come in only three months time. On average, it places the Bruins at one match per every four days this season.

The team, however, isn’t expecting any sympathy from two Arizona teams, each of which holds a top-35 spot in the national rankings and respect from UCLA players.

“I’ve played them the past three years, and they’re always really tough competitors. They always fight really hard against us,” said senior Courtney Dolehide. “But I think that physically our team is really healthy, which is really rare to be able to say this late in the season, so I’m really confident.”

Another player boasting a renewed confidence this weekend will be junior Robin Anderson, who, in the team’s last road trip to Northern California, successfully downed No. 5 Kristie Ahn of Stanford and No. 28 Denise Starr of Cal in consecutive matches, ending a roll of inconsistent results.

“Those wins were really important to me and for my confidence,” Anderson said. “The past few weeks I’ve been struggling early on and I haven’t been finishing my matches, so to be able to get those wins was a huge confidence boost for me.”

Despite these three regular season matches remaining, the Bruins can’t help but look forward to what lies ahead, specifically a chance to win the national championship next month.

“It’s nice to see the environment at practice and the matches, that they are using every match to improve,” Sampras Webster said.“I think they believe that they are one of the best teams in the country which motivates them to do well, so it’s really exciting.”