Women’s tennis makes quick turnaround to clinch win at Oregon
Freshman Kristin Wiley battled back from losing the first set 4-6 After losing a tightly contested first set 4-6, Wiley responded by snatching the second set 6-3 to send her match to a third set. (Max Himmelrich/Daily Bruin)
Womens' tennis
| No. 4 UCLA | 6 |
| Washington | 1 |
| No. 4 UCLA | 5 |
| Oregon | 2 |
By TuAnh Dam
March 30, 2015 12:27 a.m.
March Madness does not just apply to the NCAA Tournament. It applies to UCLA women’s tennis as well.
Playing their fourth match in a little more than a week, the No. 4 Bruins (14-3, 4-1 Pac-12) weathered a potential upset against the Oregon Ducks (8-7, 2-3) in Eugene, Ore. on Saturday.
“We’ve found out a lot about our players,” said coach Stella Sampras Webster. “We did a nice job of competing hard and beating them like we did.”
The Bruins entered their match against the Ducks on the heels of a 6-1 victory over the Washington Huskies Friday afternoon. UCLA finished the match then traveled 283 miles south for another dual match against a tough Pac-12 team.
Oregon claimed the first match of the day with an 8-5 upset win over UCLA’s No.1-ranked doubles team of juniors Catherine Harrison and Kyle McPhillips.
Senior Chanelle Van Nguyen and freshman Kristin Wiley responded with an 8-2 victory to put UCLA on the cusp of clinching the doubles point.
Returning from a stress fracture that sidelined her for the bulk of the season, sophomore Jennifer Brady and her partner senior Robin Anderson secured the doubles point for the Bruins with an 8-4 win over the Ducks’ top doubles team.
Anderson, the nation’s No. 1 singles player, followed with a dominant win of her own – a 6-1, 6-1 victory on court one. Oregon notched its first point after Brady retired while down 6-2, 3-2 to cut her comeback week short.
The Ducks cut the deficit to 3-2 when Oregon’s Nicole Long claimed her second upset win of the day against Van Nguyen, the nation’s No. 13-ranked singles player.
Attention turned to courts four and five, where Harrison and Wiley were battling against the persistent Ducks.
After losing a tightly contested first set 4-6, Wiley responded by snatching the second set 6-3 to send her match to a third set.
On the other court, Harrison shook off her doubles loss and raced to a 4-1 lead before claiming her first set 6-2. Oregon responded and battled back to send the second set into a tiebreak. After a back-and-forth tiebreak in which neither opponent pulled away, the UCLA junior finally toppled her opponent 14-12 to secure the match for the Bruins.
Wiley followed suit with a similarly close scoreline 4-6, 6-3, (13-11) to earn the Bruin’s fifth point of the day.
“After the first set, I became more focused and more aggressive,” Wiley said. “I wasn’t scared because I know no matter what I’m gonna compete.”
UCLA next travels to Arizona for the final leg of its four-game road trip, as the Bruins face the Arizona State Sun Devils and Arizona Wildcats on Friday and Saturday respectively.
