Women's Tennis Defeats Oregon
16th-ranked Bruins easily dispose of Ducks.
April 12, 1998
LOS ANGELES - With all the injuries that have ravaged the Oregon women's tennis team, the hard luck Ducks have had very little to celebrate this year. With Sunday's win over UCLA's 14th- ranked Annica Cooper, Alina Wygonowska is trying to change that. By beating her second top-30 ranked opponent in as many matches, Oregon's Wygonowska has improved her chances to be invited to the NCAA individual championships in South Bend, Indiana, May 20-24.
Wygonowska was beating Cooper in No. 1 singles, 6-4, 3-0, when Cooper decided to retire instead of risking injury to her already sore leg. In No. 2 singles, Oregon's Andrea Petrovic retired after losing the first set 6-0, because of sore feet that have plagued her for weeks. Petrovic will probably sit out Monday's match against USC.
Despite losing the match 5-1, Oregon's head coach Jack Griffin was very pleased with Wygonowska's effort. "In this season of tough breaks for our team, we were looking for a bright spot," said Griffin.
"Alina has provided that for us the last couple of weeks."
The 16th-ranked Bruins, coming off a huge win over No. 1 Stanford, have also struggled with injuries this year. Coach Griffin and UCLA's head coach Stella Sampras mutually agreed to call off the doubles matches to rest their teams' injured players.
UCLA improved its record to 14-8 overall and 7-4 in the Pac-10 while Oregon dropped its tenth in a row to fall to 3-15 and 0-7.
The Ducks finish their L.A. road trip Monday when they face the 21st-ranked USC Trojans.
TEAM SCORE:
UCLA 5, Oregon 1
Singles:
No. 1 Alina Wygonowska # 74 (UO) def. Annica Cooper #14 (UCLA), 6-4, 3-0 (retired)
No. 2 Cristina Popescu #36 (UCLA) def. Andrea Petrovic (UO), 6-0 (retired)
No. 3 Elizabeth Schmidt (UCLA) def. Allison Sosnow (UO), 6-1, 6-4
No. 4 Kelly Rudolph (UCLA) def. Shanelle Kaneshiro (UO), 6-2, 6-4
No. 5 Brandi Freudenberg (UCLA) def. Jaime Martin (UO), 6-4, 6-0
No. 6 Becky Rajfer (UCLA) def. Milena Glusac (UO), 6-1, 6-2
Doubles:
No. 1 Did not play
No. 2 Did not play
No. 3 Did not play