Bruins ready for sweet revenge

Thursday, May 21, 1998

Bruins ready for sweet revenge

UCLA set

to meet rival Texas in first round of NCAAs

By Jeff Kmiotek

Daily Bruin Contributor

How sweet it is. The NCAA Championships begin today at Notre
Dame, with 16 teams fighting to remain undefeated and gain the
national title. And the UCLA Bruins are right in the thick of
things, confident they can go the distance.

The Bruins began the year ranked second in the nation but
suffered many key injuries and dipped to No. 16 last month. The
Bruins are now sitting at No. 14 on the ladder, but that number
does not truly reflect the fact that the squad is completely
healthy and playing their best tennis of the year.

And so a whole new season for the Bruins begins today. As an
added bonus for their first-round match up against Texas at 10
a.m., the UCLA team has the revenge factor working for them. No. 5.
Texas (22-5) sent the Bruins packing last season at the NCAAs, and
the Longhorns have already beaten them this season in a tight
match.

"We’re very fired up to play," UCLA head coach Stella Sampras
said. "Our team is feeling pretty good ,and we’re excited to play.
They have three matches under their belt so they’re feeling
great."

Those three matches came at the Regionals last weekend, where
the Bruins dominated Marquette, Indiana and Notre Dame to advance
to the championship round.

Along with the wins, UCLA got Amanda Basica back in their
lineup. Basica entered the season slated to take over the No. 1
position but missed the entire dual match season with a shoulder
injury. She came back to post a straight-set singles victory
against Marquette in the Regionals. However, Basica didn’t get the
chance to return to doubles because the Bruins dominated singles,
and doubles play was not needed.

Basica will play doubles today against Texas, but whether or not
she competes in singles will be a gametime decision.

"She’s practicing and feeling pretty good, but it’s just a
matter of how her shoulder holds up," Sampras said.

No. 9 Annica Cooper, recently named Pac-10 player of the year,
will occupy the No. 1 slot in the lineup. She is familiar with the
courts of Notre Dame, having competed in many tournaments in South
Bend and winning a good deal of them. Cooper will be taking on No.
4 Sandy Sureephong, who won their earlier match, 7-6, 7-5.

Freshman Christina Popescu, who has also overcome a shoulder
injury this season, will play at the No. 2 position. Popescu,
ranked No. 32 in the nation, is coming off three consecutive,
straight-set wins in the Regionals.

The No. 3 slot belongs to Elizabeth Schmidt. She has been on a
tear of late, ripping up seven of her last eight opponents to close
out the year in the No. 3 spot.

The Bruins’ top player a season ago, Kati Koscis, has compiled
an 18-6 record in the Nos. 3 through 6 slots and should play at No.
4 during the tournament.

The best dual match record (20-7) of the season belongs to
senior co-captain Kelly Rudolph, who anchored the No. 4 position
with a 15-5 record. She’ll take the No. 5 or 6 slot in the tourney.
Brandi Freudenberg rounds out the singles lineup should Basica not
play, and Katia Roubonava is the final Bruin in South Bend, playing
primarily in doubles.

With all eight Bruins peaking for the final run, the team looks
forward to getting the games underway as an underdog.

"We’ve worked very hard, and we’re all playing our best right
now," said Sampras. "As a coach, I’m excited to see how well we can
do with a healthy team."

The Texas Longhorns know it will be a tough match but are also
extremely confident. They have already claimed the NCAA
Championship in 1993 and 1995 and have advanced to the semifinals
in five of the last six years.

"UCLA has had some injury problems, and I think they’re playing
much better late in the season than they were earlier in the season
when there wasn’t a lot of stability in the lineup," said Texas
coach Jeff Moore, who owns the third most women’s tennis victories
among active coaches. "But we’re also playing our best tennis of
the year. We have been very consistent, whereas earlier in the
season we were up and down."

The winner of today’s game will take on the victor of the
Florida-Pepperdine match played at 1 p.m. Florida is undefeated at
23-0 and holds the No. 2 national ranking behind Stanford, whose
only loss of the season came against UCLA last month.

The Bruins’ mood can only be described as pure excitement. They
are thinking of the tournament as a great opportunity and are ready
to pull off some upsets.

Moore put the match in one word, simply calling it a
"battle."