Editor’s Note: The Arizona Daily Wildcat caught up with women’s tennis senior Kasia Jakowlew yesterday after she combined with junior Camelia Todorova to advance to the main doubles draw semifinals at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association West Regional in San Diego over the weekend. Jakowlew discussed the tournament, her advice to freshmen and Pinocchio’s nose.

Wildcat: It was your first time playing doubles together at an event (with Todorova). Why do you think you two did so well?

Jakowlew: I think in doubles it’s a lot about chemistry and how well you work together. I think we both communicate pretty well with each other, and we like each other, and our teamwork was pretty good. Whenever we had a problem in our matches, we really pepped each other up, and we were really verbal with each other, and that really helped. So I think our communication and chemistry is very good, and I think that’s why we did so well.

W: You’d been to the ITA Regionals before. What was different about it this year?

J: Different I guess, for me and Cam it was just being more focused. In our last match, the semifinals that we lost, we were

kind of a little bit too intimidated by the team we were playing – we were playing USC – and we made it into a bigger deal than it really was. We didn’t play as well as we did in the rest of the tournament. But I think overall in the tournament, we did better because we were kind of excited to play together for the first time, and we were both really motivated and focused.

W: Kasia, you’re one of the two seniors on the team. What kind of advice do you give the younger players?

J: My advice to the freshmen, to be honest, would be to work hard and to really take advantage of the opportunities you get because it goes by faster than you think. Four years goes by really, really fast.

W: What do you think is different or special about this team as compared to past seasons?

J: I think we feel like we have a new team. We actually just lost two people, two seniors from last year. I think the girls are getting along very well this year. I think last year went really well, but I think we’re going to be able to keep that up.

W: What do you want to tell people about UA women’s tennis that they may not know?

J: That there is more competition out there than people think. The competition has been pretty hard, and people seem to think that women’s tennis really doesn’t matter that much or women’s tennis might not be that interesting, but if you come out to see us play, it’s pretty rough. The level of tennis is high. We’re playing (in the) Pac(ific) 10 (Conference), which is one of the hardest conferences you can be in. And I think we can really put on a show, so I don’t think people really realize how hard it is sometimes, how fierce it is.

W: Does the team spend time with each other outside of practice?

J: Not that much because our schedules don’t really allow us to. We see each other for a lot of hours out of the day, actually. We see each other at conditioning, we see each other at practice, so at the end of the day, that’s about four hours out of the day that we’re together. And after that, there’s not really much time in the day when we can hang out that much, but we do what we can.

W: What do you like better, Coke or Pepsi, if either?

J: I would go with Pepsi.

W: If Pinocchio said his nose were about to grow, what would happen?

J: What would happen? His nose would get bigger. I don’t know.

W: It’s a paradox.

J: Gotcha. I don’t know how to answer that question, actually.

– Interview by Alex Dalenberg