Bruins win Regionals, head for championship matches
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 14, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 MOHAMMAD ALAVI Junior Petya Marinova
hits a forehand in a match earlier this season.
By Hannah Gordon
Daily Bruin Contributor
Three hundred people clapped every time they missed a shot.
Frat boys jeered, “She can’t handle the
heat!”
But they could not stop No. 30 Bruins from upsetting No. 12
Fresno State 4-3 on the Bulldogs’ home court in NCAA Regional
finals Sunday. With the victory, the women’s tennis team
earned a spot in the 16-team NCAA Championships, which starts
Thursday in Georgia.
During doubles, freshman Mariko Fritz-Krockow and sophomore Sara
Walker asked for a trash can to be moved away from their bench
because of the smell. They were told that the stench was actually
coming from a sewer line, but a fraternity in the stands, which had
already picked up on the comment started heckling them.
“Frat guys started shouting that we stunk, and making
other nasty comments,” Fritz-Krockow said. “But it was
great motivation for me. I got so mad I had to win.”
Fritz-Krockow and Walker quieted the hecklers by defeating Liesl
Fichtbauer and Courtney Jantz 8-6. Meanwhile, at No. 1, freshman
Lauren Fisher and junior Petya Marinova, ranked No. 18 nationally,
upset No. 6-ranked Simone Jardim and Kim Niggemeyer 8-6 to win the
doubles point for UCLA.
“That was the best we’ve all played at once,”
Marinova said of doubles. “We dealt well with a mean crowd
because we knew we deserved to win.”
In singles, UCLA registered two quick wins at No. 4, where
Marinova won 6-3, 7-5, and at No. 5, where Fritz-Krockow won her
match 6-4, 6-2.
UCLA dropped two matches at the same time when senior Jennifer
Donahue lost at No. 6, 6-2, 6-0, and Catherine Hawley was defeated
at No. 2, 6-1, 7-5, bringing the overall match to 3-2.
When freshman Lauren Fisher lost her match at No. 3, 4-6, 6-3,
6-2, the match was tied 3-3. The Bruins lined up on the court to
watch No. 1 Walker finish the deciding match. Walker, ranked No. 18
nationally, dropped the first set in a tie-breaker 7-6 (6) but won
the second set 6-1. Her opponent, Kim Niggemeyer, ranked No. 23,
was fading.
“The crowd couldn’t get Kim going,” said UCLA
Head Coach Stella Sampras.
“There were 300 people in the stands against Sara and six
of us for her, but we made a lot of noise,” Fritz-Krockow
added.
Despite the crowd noise from both sides, Walker was focused.
“I didn’t let her game change my game,” Walker
said.
Instead, she took advantage of her opponent’s apparent
exhaustion by running her even more.
As a result, Walker dominated in the final set 6-0, winning her
match and UCLA’s overall match.
Donahue had said before the weekend that she saw the Regionals
as an opportunity to salvage the entire season.
Now that the team is headed to Georgia for NCAA Championships,
she feels they accomplished that goal.
“We did something no one else thought we could do,”
Donahue said. “Now we’re going to prove some more
people wrong.”
