USC serves UCLA women’s tennis its first home loss in the final regular-season game

Moments after a loss punctuated senior McCall Jones’ regular season career, Danielle Lao placed her racquet on the ground and ran into the embraces of her USC teammates. Having been vanquished 6-1, the UCLA women’s tennis team silently filed themselves out of sight as the Pac-12 champions exchanged hugs and jumped around together, proclaiming “We are ‘SC!”

The Trojans’ No. 2 singles player seemed to forget about her racquet, which remained untouched on the ground throughout the celebration and for several minutes after, marking the Los Angeles Tennis Center as Trojan territory on Friday.

A team-wide memory lapse would have served the Bruins well during their first home loss. After dropping the doubles point for only the third time this season, all singles players except freshman Chanelle Van Nguyen lost, and in straight sets.

“I was disappointed in how some of our players could’ve fought that much harder. We got so down, (the players) didn’t allow themselves to get back in it and fight for it a little more. … We had so many great moments this season, for us to finish like this, it’s just disappointing,” coach Stella Sampras Webster said.

Robin Anderson’s confidence, already shaken because of an atypically large Bruin crowd, took a hit after losing to the No. 7 doubles team in the nation, and the freshman never recovered in singles. Anderson audibly transformed into her vocal teammate Jones, and could be heard growling and shouting to herself after netting balls and going too long on some shots.

“It’s always tough to lose. … I usually don’t vocalize my frustration or anger, but yesterday I couldn’t hold it in,” Anderson said.

The post-game scene in the tunnel outside of the UCLA team room during an extended meeting was anything but positive for the Bruins. USC players chatted excitedly as they passed by on their way to the visitors’ room. One Trojan praised another by likening her teammate to a machine. Meanwhile, Bruin supporters found little value from the defeat. Two men joked that nothing productive could be said by the coaches, other than “You played bad.”

The trouncing reminds UCLA that even after starting 20-0 and snapping Stanford’s 13-year home game winning streak just a week ago, the team that Sampras Webster described as “scared” remains very much human.

Kaitlin Ray, who suffered her first dual match loss, believes the image of USC celebrating on senior day will stick in her mind as the team looks for answers with the Pac-12 Tournament, and possibly another installment in the rivalry, a week away.

“It’s something that you put in the back of your head. It’s a little easier to do the extra sprint, put in some extra practice, because you never want to feel like that or witness something like that,” the freshman said. “They won, they can do whatever they want. But we’ll use it as extra motivation, so we never have to walk off the court feeling like that again.”