UNIVERSITY BEAT

UCLA women’s tennis player Sara Walker appears to be putting an injury-plagued sophomore season behind her.

Walker, a junior, was No. 5 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. preseason singles rankings. She won the singles and doubles titles of the ITA Southwest Regional Championships on Oct. 28 and will be seeded fourth in women’s singles in this week’s Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in Farmers, Texas.

She needed the boost after struggling with a stress reaction in her left foot that forced her to sit out nine matches last season. Walker also has occasional difficulty with a herniated disk.

“Last year was tough,” Walker said. “It was hard because I had to sit and watch, and it was hard on the team too.”

Walker, who reached the quarterfinals of the Indoor Championships last year, was the Pacific-10 singles champion and freshman of the year for 1999-2000.

As a sophomore, she lost in the conference semifinals and in the second round of the NCAA Championships in singles as a sophomore, though she won the Pac-10 doubles title with Mariko Fritz-Krockow. As a team, the Bruins went 9-18 and lost in the round of 16 in the NCAA Championships after reaching the quarterfinals her freshman year.

*

UCLA’s Marcin Matkowski and Jean-Julien Rojer will be the top-seeded team in the men’s doubles competition at the Indoor Championships after winning the ITA Men’s All-American Championships and the Men’s Southern California Regional Championships last month.

Others from Southern California who will be competing this week include Pepperdine senior Al Garland, who is seeded fifth in men’s singles. Matkowski also will compete in singles, along with former Palisades High standout Danny Westerman of Wisconsin. Jewel Peterson, a junior at USC, will be making her third appearance in as many years in the women’s tournament.