News & Features

My Players

|

My Lists

|

My School

|

My Notifications

Team Home

Two teams that had endured prolonged bouts of illness and injury during the season found their form at just the right time, with the UCLA Bruins taking their first women's championship with a 4-0 win over Cal-Berkeley Tuesday afternoon and the Georgia Bulldogs successfully defending their 2007 title with a 4-2 victory over Texas Tuesday night at the Michael Case Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Tulsa.

Cal coach Amanda Augustus commented that the Pac 10 clash between her team, seeded eighth, and No. 7 seed UCLA may have been the longest 4-0 match in history, and there's no doubt the final score was deceiving. It took nearly an hour and a half for UCLA to take the doubles point with a win at No. 3, after Cal had won at No. 2 and UCLA at No. 1. Fortunately, weather conditions were ideal, with temperatures in the upper 70s and little humidity or wind, so the four-hour competition was more emotionally than physically draining.

In singles, the first sets were 3-2 in favor of UCLA, with the match at No. 2 between Tracy Lin and Marina Cossou at 5-5 in the first. But by the time Cossou had taken it in a tiebreaker, UCLA had posted its second win, with senior Alex McGoodwin taking out Bojana Bobusic 6-4, 6-1 at No. 6. With UCLA leading 2-0, it looked as if Bruin senior Liz Lumpkin would give her team a comfortable 3-0 lead when she was serving up 6-2, 5-2 at No. 5, but Cal's Stephanie Kusano won the next five games to earn an split, a big psychological boost for her team.