Good teams find ways to win when they’re not at their
best, while great teams find ways to dominate when they’re
not at their best.
The UCLA men’s tennis team looks like a great team.
Friday afternoon the No. 1 Bruins (2-0) outplayed the Fresno
State Bulldogs (1-1) at home, winning 7-0, despite the fact that no
Bruin played his best tennis.
“We all are feeling a little bit tired,” head coach
Billy Martin said. “That was a long tournament for a lot of
the guys, and we’ve been working fairly hard in practice.
I’ve had them lifting and running this week, and I think we
were running a little bit empty on energy level.”
“I think we need to go through that, just to get in better
shape and still go out and try to win,” he added.
The Bruins did better than try, as junior Marcin Matkowski was
the only UCLA player to drop a set. He lost the first set 2-6 to
Fresno State’s No. 2 singles player Greg Shearer and was
visibly frustrated early, tossing his racquet into the wall.
“Yeah, I tossed my racquet,” Matkowski said.
“I was trying to do something to turn around the
match.”
He turned it around in the second and third sets, winning them
6-0, 6-3, but was still bothered afterward by his lack of focus in
the first.
“I started off really slow again,” Matkowski said.
“But after I got into it, I lost only two games after
that.”
When the only discernable negative for your team is one player
dropping one set, you must be doing something right.
Sophomore Chris Lam wasn’t doing much right early in his
No. 5 singles match against Marc Schaerer, as he quickly fell
behind 1-5, but Lam, like Matkowski, figured something out and
mounted an amazing comeback. Lam won his match 7-6 (0), 6-1.
Senior Rodrigo Grilli saw his first action in the Bruins’
starting singles lineup, as he is now fully recovered from a groin
injury he suffered in the fall. Grilli defeated Alex Krohn 6-3, 6-4
at the No. 3 singles position, and was fairly satisfied with his
performance.
“I played pretty well. I played my game. It was
solid,” Grilli said.
Nationally-ranked No. 12 Tobias Clemens wasn’t his usual
dominating self at the No. 1 singles position, but he still
registered a straight set victory over fellow German Stefan Suta
6-4, 7-5.
“He’s tired, but he did his job, got it done, and
didn’t moan, and complain too much about it,” said
Martin of his star player.
Senior captain Erfan Djahngiri was tough at No. 4 singles,
beating Sergui Modoc 6-4, 7-5, in the last completed match of the
day, and senior Lassi Ketola turned in another solid performance at
No. 6 singles, beating Nima Roshan 6-2, 6-4.
“I felt okay today, a little tired,” Ketola said
after his match.
That sentiment seemed to be echoed by the all the Bruins Friday:
It wasn’t great, but it was more than good enough.
In doubles, Matkowski and Grilli defeated Shearer and Danny
O’Rourke, 8-5, Clemens and Ketola downed Modoc and Andy Sinn
8-4, and Djahngiri and Alberto Francis beat Roshan and Krohn
8-3.