The crosstown rivalry has seen 31 national team championships,
hundreds of All-Americans, and 75 Grand Slam titles.
Through the years, men’s tennis players from UCLA and USC
have likely contributed more to collegiate tennis than athletes
from any other programs.
The two squads renew their rivalry today at USC at 1:30 p.m, but
this time, the No. 1 Bruins (3-0) really have something to
prove. No. 7 USC (3-1) is coming off a national championship
season, while the Bruins are favored to win the championship this
year.
“It’s always one of the highlights of the
year,” Bruin head coach Billy Martin said of the match.
“The fact that they won the championship last year makes this
game even more important.”
It’s important because being the best means beating the
best.
“‘SC is always a great game,” senior Lassi
Ketola said. “We want to beat them even more since they won
the championship (last year).”
Not even a year has passed since USC secured the title. On
the other hand, 19 years have passed since the Bruins last achieved
that feat in 1984. But the way they have been going through
opponents, it appears as if this UCLA team is hungry. It
hasn’t surrendered a team point this season.
USC hasn’t achieved that same dominance. The team
dropped its first match of the season Wednesday at No. 17
Pepperdine, 5-2.
Though it is a game between the two schools that have been
meeting for decades, the teams’ faces have changed
dramatically in recent years.
USC’s coach of 23 years, Dick Leach, retired after last
season.
“I’m good friends with him,” Martin said.
“We go way back together, and have faced each other for all
20 years I’ve been coaching. It will be different facing
‘SC without him.”
Leach’s replacement is Peter Smith, who guided Pepperdine
to five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances before accepting
the USC head coaching position.
New faces have come to take over Bruin territory as well. This
will be the first match against the Trojans for UCLA freshman Chris
Surapol and sophomore transfer Chris Lam.
No. 12 Tobias Clemens has done this before, but he’s still
excited.
“We always look forward to playing ‘SC. It’s
always a great game and they play us tough. We really want to
win,” he said.