UCLA victorious over unworthy foes; coach encourages “˜I’ in “˜team’

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior
Petya Marinova helped UCLA beat Fresno State 6-1
Friday.

Marinova lost her doubles match with junior Sara Walker but
defeated her singles opposition 7-5, 6-3.

By Eric Perez
Daily Bruin Contributor

The UCLA women’s tennis team thus far this season feels
like a brand new high performance vehicle in which the driver is
not quite ready to take it to the highway.

The victories against opponents such as stumbling No. 17 Fresno
State (3-3) and Pepperdine (3-5) don’t exactly give the No.
11 Bruins (6-0) an opportunity to see how fast they can go from
zero to 60.

“I don’t think we played great, but they competed
pretty well,” UCLA head coach Stella Sampras said.
“They had to persevere through some of these matches because
they weren’t playing as well as they had in the
past.”

On top of that, top singles freshman Megan Bradley, ranked No. 7
in the nation, retired against Fresno St.’s Kim Niggemeyer,
who is ranked No. 14, before the start of the third set. Bradley
has been battling tendinitis in her shoulder for the past few
years, and decided to sit it out because the dual match was already
decided.

UCLA defeated Fresno State 6-1 at home on Friday, then the
University of Pepperdine on Saturday 5-2. But these weekend matches
left UCLA somewhat dissatisfied with their performance.

This could be attributed to the week they spent in the garage,
without any match play since Feb. 1.

“We just needed to get into that match mode again,”
senior Catherine Hawley said. “Whether we are playing our
best or not, we want to find a way to win and that’s our
bottom line.”

A problem Sampras felt she had to address over the weekend was a
team becoming too focused on the achievements of the whole team
rather than on individual improvement.

This may sound odd, given sports culture’s infatuation
with the ego as athlete, yet Sampras feels that with more
challenging matches to come, notably No. 7 Arizona State this
Friday, the time will come when all points from the lineup will be
essential.

“As a team they are excellent,” Sampras said.
“But I think each of them needs to think about their matches,
they need to think about themselves as far they are progressing as
individuals.

“If we have a couple that aren’t, it’s going
to hurt us,” she added.

Friday’s match hopefully gives the Bruins an opportunity
to step on the gas and see how fast this ride will go.