After a fall from being a lineup cornerstone, recapturing one’s old glory can be a fruitless endeavor.

The very opposite has been true for Bianca Fernandez in 2026.

And during her squad’s Midwest rodeo, the junior played hero.

Then-No. 6 UCLA women’s tennis (7-3, 1-1 Big Ten) lost 4-3 to Wisconsin (8-3, 1-1) on Friday at Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Madison before rebounding with a 4-1 victory against Minnesota (9-6, 0-2) on Sunday at Baseline Tennis Center in Minneapolis. Fernandez’s clinching singles win over the Golden Gophers earned the Bruins their first conference win, as the road trip marked the opening of Big Ten play.

“We got used to playing indoor tennis today (Sunday),” said coach Stella Sampras Webster. “We were in shock on Friday when we played Wisconsin. Today, we were more prepared to know how it’s going to be.”

Sampras Webster said that UCLA’s first indoor tennis trip of the season – against UCF and LSU on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25, respectively – was spent playing against teams that looked to win off long rallies, enabling UCLA to adjust.

The pair of midwestern teams they faced this weekend, on the other hand, emphasized power plays and service wins, diminishing the Bruins’ ability to find their groove, the coach added.

No. 108 Fernandez was among the Bruin leaders in their road outing, defeating Wisconsin’s Ellison Reynoldson 6-1, 6-3 and Minnesota’s Sofia Pinto 6-1, 5-7, 6-2.

Fernandez clinched the win Sunday with a smash that Pinto could not return and let out a cheer as she celebrated the dual-match victory.

“I wasn’t really thinking about clinching,” Fernandez said. “Since I started my third set after AC (senior Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer), I went into the third set thinking she would clinch. So I just tried to play. I felt pretty stressed because I realized I might have been the one that could clinch, but Stella had reminded me to just breathe, stay down, tiny things that helped me throughout the match.”

The junior’s final rally added to her 7-1 dual-match start in 2026, a far cry from her play last season.

After playing in 24 dual-matches as a freshman and earning All-Pac-12 honors, Fernandez experienced a sophomore slump in 2025, going 3-4 across seven dual-matches and slipping out of the Bruin lineup.

“Last year I was definitely not at my best, physically, mentally,” Fernandez said. “It was probably one of the hardest years. And a family friend … had told me, ‘Don’t put too much pressure because the second year will always be the hardest year.’ And I didn’t take her seriously until it happened. So then this year, I came in with a new mindset.”

Fernandez added that she approaches each day as a new challenge, enabling her to compete through a season’s peaks and troughs.

Fellow junior Ahmani Guichard has also experienced a turnaround of her own this season.

After starting her season 0-3, Guichard has won five out of her last six matches and defeated both of her opponents this weekend in straight sets.

“I’ve definitely been working on the mental side of the game a lot, especially with our sports psych (psychologist),” Guichard said. “There’s improvements both physically and mentally but just focusing on staying the course.”

No. 40 Lutkemeyer defeated No. 17 Maria Sholokhova 6-4, 7-6 (4) on Friday, securing her fifth ranked victory of the season.

A few hours after the Bruin victory on Sunday, it was announced that the senior had been named a 2026 Hurd Award finalist, securing a $40,000 grant to help support her post-collegiate transition to professional tennis.

It was yet another accolade that Lutkemeyer, a 2025 First Team All-Big Ten honoree and four-time Big Ten Player of the Week, added to her list of achievements.

“She’s just the best competitor we’ve had in a long time at UCLA,” Sampras Webster said. “She can beat a lot of players by just outcompeting them. … Indoor tennis is not her best surface, but she’s coming out there and playing like she’s the best player in the world.”