By
Ryan Finley and Dan Komyati
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The UA women's tennis team won its first Pacific 10 Conference match of the season this past weekend only to lose one of the team's best players to off-court disputes.
Junior Lindsay Blau, the team's No. 1 singles player, left the team permanently, citing differences with her coaches.
"Lindsay has decided to quit the team," UA head coach Brad Dancer said. "We really don't want to go into it much more."
When reached yesterday, Blau said her decision to leave the team was due to a personality conflict with Dancer, who took over for Stephanie London last season.
"We hadn't met on a middle ground since he got here," she said. "He wasn't the coach that recruited me. I didn't come here to play for him."
Blau had been the No. 1 singles player for UA since coming to campus in Fall 1998 after a successful career at Ossining High School in Ossining, N.Y.
Blau - a three-time national player of the week during the 1999-2000 season - said she will transfer, though she would not reveal where.
"I have a lot of choices all over the country," she said. "For now, I'm going to keep it to myself."
The junior said that her roommate and former doubles partner, Michelle Gough, had supported her throughout her ordeal. Gough is now the Wildcats' top singles player.
"She's one of my good friends, " Blau said. "She stuck by my side."
Despite their conflicts, Blau said that she respects her former coach.
"Brad has a good personality," she said. "He's a decent guy."
The Wildcats - playing without Blau - failed to lose a set in any of their singles matches and swept all three doubles matches en route to a 7-0 victory Sunday at the Robson Tennis Center.
Gough returned healthy from the NCAA Indoor Championships in Dallas to lead the Wildcats as their No. 1 singles player, winning 6-2, 6-2, over NAU's Yvonne DeWaal.
Gough said she felt the win over the Lumberjacks was a good experience especially because she felt recent illness had hindered her from winning a match at the Indoor Championships.
"I wasn't feeling very strong, and if you want to do well at a tournament like that, you need to be 100 percent," Gough said. "But I'm glad it happened during an individual event and did not affect the team."
While the team eased to victory Sunday, UA head coach Brad Dancer said he is looking forward to the continued improvement of his No. 25 Wildcats.
"I think we were all a little nervous playing our first home match," he said. "I don't think that any of the girls really played their best tennis."
Even so, the effort was certainly good enough for a victory against NAU. In the No. 2 singles slot, UA freshman Debbie Larocque cruised past Susanna Wallin 6-1, 6-1. Arizona junior Laresa Marino, playing as the Wildcats' No. 4, defeated the Lumberjacks' Karen Kmiec 6-3, 6-2.
The Wildcats only lost as many as three games twice during the 12 sets of singles play. More important than the outcome, however, was that the match marked the first time this season that the Wildcats (1-2 overall, 0-2 Pacific 10 Conference) played without a player missing due to injury or illness.
"It was just good to have our entire team healthy again," Dancer said.
