Bruins reach end of whirlwind season

Wednesday, May 27, 1998

Bruins reach end of whirlwind season

RECAP: Team endures ups, downs when injuries hinder year’s
potential

By Jeff Kmiotek

Daily Bruin Contributor

Saying it’s been a roller coaster season for the UCLA women’s
tennis team may be an understatement.

The following is a look at all the highs and lows of the year,
with the thoughts of Annica Cooper and Christina Popescu. No. 9
Cooper is the Pacific 10 Player of the Year and No. 32 Popescu has
been named the West Region’s Rookie of the Year and Player to
Watch. Both players competed in the NCAA Singles Championships this
week at Notre Dame.

Entering the season, the Bruins’ outlook was outstanding. The
No. 2 Bruins had acquired All-American sophomore Amanda Basica from
Florida to compete in the top spot. Basica began the season ranked
No. 4 in the nation. UCLA also got Christina Popescu, the top
juniors player from Canada. Returning to the Bruins was
All-American Kati Kocsis, who played in the No. 1 slot last year
and finished the campaign ranked No. 12 in the country. Also
returning were sophomore All-Americans Annica Cooper and Elizabeth
Schmidt, both ranked in the top 30 to enter the fall.

"At the beginning of the year, our only goal was to win it all,"
Cooper said. "We didn’t think about anything else."

Added Popescu: "We had a good team, but then everything went
wrong, with the injuries and all."

"When it rains, it pours" is a fitting proverb for UCLA’s
injury-plagued players. Basica, who began the year 10-1 in
tournament play, suffered a shoulder injury in December and missed
the entire dual match season. Kocsis had to take the fall off to
rehabilitate an injury, and she never recovered to her form of a
year ago. Popescu also hurt her shoulder and was forced to serve
underhand throughout most of the year. And All-American Katia
Roubanova, a potential top-10 singles player, could only play
doubles this season due to her injury.

"It seemed like half the team was injured," Popescu said.

The Bruins are a fairly deep team, and they withstood injuries
to win five of their first six games, including a win over No. 25
USC. At that time, these wins were almost a given to the
Bruins.

"We expected to win each game, and when we lost, we just
thought, ‘We have players hurt, so it’s no big deal,’" Cooper
said.

Their seventh match was against No. 11 William and Mary at the
National Team Indoors, where they lost, 6-3. The following day,
they fell to Mississippi in a consolation game.

"We had two match points to win against Mississippi, so that was
really bad," said Popescu. "That match made us drop in the
rankings."

UCLA’s record stood at 9-5 after they lost at No. 4 Texas on
March 9 in a pivotal match.

"We weren’t really confident going into Texas," said Cooper.

And ironically, although they were defeated, the Bruins’
confidence received a boost from this contest.

"We played well, and it was close. It was a positive trip,"
Popescu said. "We hadn’t been doing good and Texas was really good,
and they had killed us last year. It was so close so we realized
things were getting better."

The Bruins fell to No. 13 in the rankings as they came home for
a string of Pac-10 battles. They crushed No. 15 Arizona, but were
on the other end of a rout the next day against No. 9 Arizona
State.

"Arizona State killed us," Popescu said. "That was confusing,
because we had just beaten Arizona so badly and then the next day
we lose. But they came out really strong and played awesome."

The highlight of the season came on April 3, when the top-ranked
and undefeated Stanford Cardinal visited Westwood. UCLA, 10-7 at
the time, stunned Stanford 5-4, showing the collegiate world it
could compete with the best.

The Bruins ran their record to 14-9 for their second meeting
against Stanford, the final dual match of the year. But this time,
the Cardinal owned the home-court advantage and they edged the
Bruins 5-4.

"We almost beat them again," said Popescu.

"We should’ve beaten them again," Cooper corrected. "Everybody
was there that day. The crowd was tough. That’s a problem at UCLA;
the lack of crowd support."

The Bruins were also fueled by a comment made by Stanford coach
Frank Brennan.

"Frank had said that it was a fluke that we beat them the first
time, so we really wanted to beat them again. They were the No. 1
team, and we came so close," Popescu said.

The Bruins concluded the season at 14-10 with a No. 14 ranking.
On May 15, they traveled to Illinois for the Regionals, where the
winner would advance to the NCAA Championships. Amanda Basica made
her first appearance since November 17 and helped the Bruins
dominate the Midwest bracket. They mauled Marquette 5-1, blanked
Indiana 5-0 and put Notre Dame to shame 5-1 in the finals.

"Regionals were really good. I played my best tennis of the
year," Popescu said. "It was the first time Amanda (Basica) played
and that helped the whole team’s confidence."

The Bruins were finally peaking and jelling together. They were
at the top of their game. UCLA made it to the 16-team NCAA
Championship at Notre Dame, where every team’s record starts fresh
at 0-0.

The Bruins received a tough draw, getting matched up against No.
5 Texas, another team on the rise. The Longhorns had already beaten
the Bruins this year, and were the team that knocked them out of
the NCAAs last year.

UCLA stepped onto the courts on a high, but then the roof fell
in. Texas took care of UCLA in singles, winning every match for a
5-0 victory. And just like that, the season came tumbling down.

"We just didn’t match up well individually," Cooper said. "I
thought we’d have had a good chance to beat them in doubles if we
could have gotten there."

"I really didn’t expect to lose the whole match in singles,"
Popescu said.

All in all, given what the Bruins had to work with, it’s been a
positive season. But nonetheless, disappointment is the feeling
swirling around the Bruins.

"It was an exciting year, being my first and all," Popescu said.
"But it was disappointing, because we could have done so well and
had so much potential at the beginning. We were just unlucky the
whole time. But I still have three years to go and we’ll put it
together eventually."

Cooper summed up the year with the following: "It’s been a
challenge the whole season. We were never really comfortable. We
were always thinking about something else rather than just playing
tennis. To be so high and to go down so fast was an automatic
disappointment, more so than last year."

With Basica, Kocsis and Popescu all being potential top-10
players, a popular phrase around the Bruin camp has to be "what
if." What if Amanda Basica played all season? What if Christina
Popescu was injury-free and could serve overhand? What if Kati
Kocsis played like she did a season ago, and what if Katia
Roubanova was able to play singles?

But what’s done is done, and it is time for the Bruins to look
ahead to next season and be the team they are capable of being.
They will lose Kocsis and Kelly Rudolph, but with the rest of the
squad remaining healthy, the Bruins will be in fine shape to make a
run at the national title.

DERRICK KUDO/Daily Bruin

Freshman Christina Popescu is one of the Bruins in the
tournament.