April 17, 1998

BERKELEY, Calif.--The No. 10 California women's tennis team pulled out a 7-2 win over the 16th-ranked UCLA Bruins after a four hour battle today at the Hellman Tennis Center on the Berkeley campus. The win improves the Bears season record to 17-5 and furthers its quest for a Top eight seed at the NCAA championships next month. The Bruins fall to 14-9 and out of contention for second place in the Pac-10 race.

Junior Amanda Augustus, the nation's sixth-ranked player, rebounded from a rare loss last week at Arizona State to defeat No. 36 Cristina Popescu, 6-4, 6-4 at the No. 1 singles spot. Augustus now has a 25-7 record on the year.

Freshman Anita Kurimay had the easiest outing of all the Bears, breezing by Kelly Rudolph, 6-1, 6-1, in the No. 4 match.

Amy Jensen and Claire Curran logged in over two hours of court time in their singles matches at No. 2 and No. 4, respectively, but both players lost in three sets. Jensen, playing at No. 2 for just the third time this season, edged No. 14 Annicia Cooper, 7-6, in the first set. However, Cooper's passing shots proved to be too much for Jensen's net game and Jensen dropped the next two sets, 6-2, 6-0. Meanwhile, No. 55 Curran, competing in her fourth singles match since returning from an elbow injury, breezed by Kati Kocsis, 6-0, in the first set. Up 5-1 in the second set, it appeared as though Curran was about to extend her season undefeated dual match streak to four contests. However, the tide shifted in that sixth game. Kocsis found a groove and slowly worked her way back into the match to pull out a 0-6, 7-6, 6-12 victory.

With the match score at 4-2, the Bears turned its intensity up a notch in doubles play and sprang to early leads in every match. Francesca La'O and Jenny Lee clinched the Bears win at No. 3 doubles, defeating Katia Roubanova and Brandi Freudenberg, 8-4. The other two Bear tandems edged the Bruins, 8-6, to sweeten the team victory.

NCAA Women's Tennis Final Results
No. 10 California   7
No. 16 UCLA 2

Singles
No. 1: Amanda Augustus (Cal) def. Cristina Popescu (UCLA) 6-4, 6-4
No. 2: Annicia Cooper (UCLA) def. Amy Jensen (Cal) 6-7, 6-2, 6-0
No. 3: Esther Knox (Cal) def. Elizabeth Schmidt (UCLA) 6-4, 6-1
No. 4: Anita Kurimay (Cal) def. Kelly Rudolph (UCLA) 6-1, 6-1
No. 5: Kati Kocsis (UCLA) def. Claire Curran (Cal) 0-6, 7-6, 6-1
No. 6: Stephanie Tibbits (Cal) def. Brandi Freudenberg (UCLA) 6-2, 6-2

Doubles
No. 1: Augustus/Jensen (Cal) def. Kocsis/ Cooper (UCLA) 8-6
No. 2: Knox/ Kurimay (Cal) def. Schmidt/ Popescu (UCLA) 8-6
No. 3: Jenny Lee/ Francesca La'O (Cal) def. Freudenberg/ Katia Roubanova (UCLA) 8-4