This Sampras simply stellar at UCLA

Chances are, there will be another Sampras milestone in tennis achieved today.

No, this will have nothing to do with the guy with the huge first serve, the leaping overhead and the record 14 Grand Slam tournament titles.

That’s Pete Sampras. For this milestone, he’ll be just another fan, fingers crossed, rooting.

Today at the Los Angeles Tennis center at UCLA, when the UCLA women’s tennis team takes on Oregon in a dual match at noon, a Bruins victory will bring win No. 200 to their coach, Stella Sampras.

Interestingly, unless she picks up a morning paper today, Stella Sampras most likely will have no idea what she has accomplished, even when the last match is over and the Bruins have prevailed, as would be expected of the No. 8 team in the country against a lower-rated Ducks team.

“She doesn’t pay a lot of attention to things like this,” husband Steve Webster says. “If I mentioned it to her, she’d say something like, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ ”

Says brother Pete: “She’s pretty grounded about everything. We have a party planned at my house afterward, but I don’t think anybody is mentioning that to her. She’d probably think we are making too big a deal out of this.”

Senior Tracy Lin, No. 2 player for the Bruins, says, “The players all know about No. 200, but I don’t think anybody is saying anything to her. I really don’t think she has paid any attention to it.”

Danny Harrington does the sports information work for UCLA’s women’s tennis team, and he too thinks No. 200 may come as a surprise to the coach.

“I put it in the game notes, that her record is 199-102,” he says, “but she’s been so busy and out of town that I don’t think she will read them.”

Sampras has coached the Bruins for 12 years. Getting to victory No. 200 has been done by several of her peers, but getting to 200 this fast is noteworthy.

And there seem to be many accomplishments ahead.

She has taken the Bruins to the final match of the NCAA tournament twice, losing in 2004 to Stanford and in 2007 -- after beating Stanford in the semifinals -- to Georgia Tech. Prospects for more this year are quite good.

UCLA is ranked three spots below Stanford, which the Bruins have beaten once, and one below California. Because of the traditional dominance of Stanford, UCLA has not won a Pac-10 women’s tennis title since conference competition began in 1987, much less an NCAA title. But Sampras keeps getting the Bruins closer and closer.

That is especially surprising since her stated plan was to step down after the birth of twin daughters Sophie and Savannah and be a full-time mom. That was 2 1/2 years ago, and once she found she could manage motherhood and coaching, Sampras stayed on and the program flourished.

She grew up on the tennis courts of Palos Verdes and was a very good player.

“She argues that she beat me until I was 14,” says Pete, who at 36 is three years younger. “I tell her it was more like when I was 12.”

She went to UCLA, is one of only a handful of four-year All-Americans the school has had, 1988 to ‘91, and won one NCAA doubles title and lost another in the final.

She had a short pro career, getting her singles ranking to No. 248 and her doubles to No. 142.

Then she returned to UCLA as an assistant coach and took over the head job 12 seasons ago, where her quiet style has served the school well.

“She’s not a yeller,” Pete says. “She’s one of those people who leads by example. She’s not in your face. I think the players respect that.”

Adds Tracy Lin: “She’s not only helped my tennis, but she’s helped me grow as a person. Tennis is an individual sport, but in college, you are part of a team. She taught me that everything isn’t always about me.”

When today’s match ends, and UCLA’s record presumably goes from 13-4 to 14-4, tennis will have brought the Sampras family another special moment. Husband Steve and brother Pete are the party planners, and sister Marion and brother Gus may make it too, as well as the patriarch and matriarch, Sam and Georgia.

“There are nine grandkids, everybody lives fairly close in L.A., and that means a birthday party just about every month,” Pete says. “Our lives now are all about the kids.”

Also, still about tennis.

There will never be a trophy case the size of Pete’s in the Sampras family. But nobody in the family, including Pete, would deny that, as good days in tennis go, Stella’s March 29, 2008, represents a pretty nice piece of hardware.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com.

For previous columns, go to latimes.com/dwyre.