| Women’s Tennis |
|---|
| Indiana — 1 |
| UCLA — 4 |
Intensity, intensity, intensity.
That’s what the UCLA Bruins want to emulate during the final weekend of the regular season, with postseason tennis right around the corner.
No. 19 UCLA women’s tennis (14-6, 8-4 Big Ten) moved past Indiana (14-10, 4-8 Big Ten) 4-1 at Los Angeles Tennis Center on Friday afternoon and extended their win streak to five games.
Back home after two road victories at Illinois and Northwestern, the Bruins dominated the doubles point, but faced a little more adversity in grinding out their singles victories.
Two 6-0 sweeps in the doubles round acted almost as a head start for UCLA, who found themselves up 1-0 within 20 minutes of the first serve.
The duo of freshman Kayla Chung and junior Ahmani Guichard scored the first set win for UCLA, followed swiftly by the pair of senior Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer and freshman Mayu Crossley pulling off a sweep of their own, emphasized by Crossley rocketing a winning ace to seal the set.
It seemed the Hoosiers were in over their heads.
But the Bruins wouldn’t find the same ease in the singles round.
While sophomore Olivia Center completed a 6-2, 6-3 match to double the Bruin lead, junior Bianca Fernandez fell short in a two set loss to Indiana’s Nicole Teodosescu. Fernandez battled back from a 2-5 deficit to tie the second set at 5-5, but was overmatched as Indiana’s first and only victory of the day.
No. 49 Crossley, winner of a conference-leading five Big Ten Freshman of the Week awards, fought through a 7-5 first set against Ameia Sorey before clinching a 6-2 second set to set the Bruins up 3-1, one point away from killing the match.
Yet, when placed in a one-on-one battle with sole focus on the opponent, the overall score has little impact.
Sophomore Kate Fakih bested Elisabeth Dunac in her first set, a 6-3 triumph, but showed some frustrations amidst a rough 1-6 loss that followed. Meanwhile, Lutkemeyer found herself locked in a battle with Alessandra Teodosescu, the younger sister of her teammate Nicole Teodosescu.
Lutkemeyer, the senior captain known for her intensity and passionate shouts of “Let’s go!” and “Come on!” during points, split her first two sets with Alessandra Teodosescu to set up a potentially match-winning third set.
Both contestants knew the stakes.
A fierce competitor herself, Alessandra Teodosescu also let out shouts of intensity after big rallies and points, hyped up by her bench standing up and egging on the tension.
Down 2-3 in the final set, with the match peaking in energy, Lutkemeyer would require a rally.
Until news from court six revealed that Chung had won the match for the Bruins.
The freshman took her time, grinding out a 7-6 extra point win in her first set over Nicole Sifuentes, but faced a 2-4 deficit during the second.
Enter four straight points by Chung to give UCLA a 4-1, match-ending advantage.
As the only senior on the roster, Lutkemeyer will receive her flowers and celebrations at noon on Saturday, April 18 at home against Purdue, UCLA’s final opponent of the regular season.
