Clemens free to play in tourney

Tobias Clemens has been cleared by the NCAA to play in this
week’s NCAA Championships, men’s tennis coach Billy
Martin said Wednesday.

The NCAA investigated last week whether Clemens, UCLA’s
top singles player and the No. 5 player in the nation, had taken
prize money while playing in a German league prior to attending
UCLA in 2000.

If he had taken prize money, that would have made him a
professional and thus ineligible to play college sports.

“He is cleared,” Martin said. “We feel there
is no doubt in anyone’s mind he is absolutely fine to
play.”

According to Martin, both he and Clemens had to stay up late at
night in order to get the necessary documentation from Germany.

The documentation proved that Clemens never took money, and that
the league he played in wasn’t professional.

“We must have spent 30 hours up late at night, dealing
with getting things overseas,” Martin said. “We were
doing things at 1 a.m., trying to get a hold of people and getting
faxes.”

Despite the fact that the incident is over, the manner in which
it was conducted still leaves a bitter taste in Martin’s
mouth.

According to Martin, three coaches whose teams are still alive
in the NCAA tournament purposefully complained to the NCAA in order
to provoke an investigation right at the most critical point of the
season.

The triple entente was led by Craig Tiley of Illinois, along
with Michael Center of Texas and Tim Cass of Texas A & M.

Martin spoke with Center about the situation on Wednesday.

“I let him know my uneasiness,” Martin said.
“It’s one thing to feel that someone should be
ineligible, but it’s another thing to do it at such a
critical time.”

Martin feels that the timing was a premeditated attempt to try
to bring down his team.

“They had all year to question this,” Martin added.
“They did it just to get a competitive advantage, and that is
what irks me.”

The trio only complained about a dozen or so players from the
European club circuit, even though there are over 50 players in
college tennis who had previously played in them.

And that dozen, according to Martin, are all in direct
competition with Illinois, Texas and Texas A & M for the NCAA
title.

None of the three coaches could be reached for comment
Wednesday.

Texas would have to beat heavily favored Florida in order for
UCLA to play them in the quarterfinals.

But if the two teams end up meeting, Martin knows it won’t
be hard to fire his team up.

“If we were to play Texas, we can’t let our emotions
get too crazy,” Martin said. “But this could certainly
fire us up.”

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The UCLA men’s tennis team is currently in Athens, Ga.,
preparing for their first-round match against Oklahoma State, which
takes place Saturday at 6 a.m.

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