This is the best way it could possibly have ended.
The curse.
The streak.
The 21-year run of bad luck that has plagued the UCLA
men’s tennis program since it last won the NCAA title in
1984.
All that vanished over the course of four tension-filled hours
and one miraculous comeback in the heart of Texas on Tuesday
night.
One loss away from yet another agonizing dose of championship
heartbreak, UCLA instead roared back to defeat top-ranked Baylor
and exorcise its demons in the most fitting way possible.
Even the most ardent glass-half-full Bruin fan could not
possibly have imagined that Tuesday would be the day UCLA’s
playoff misfortune would come to an end.
Baylor, undefeated in its last 57 matches, clobbered the Bruins
in the NCAA Finals last season, sweeping them right off the
court.
This year, the Bears once again won the doubles point ““ an
accurate predictor of the winner of every NCAA Tournament match
this year before Tuesday ““ and held a 3-1 lead, needing only
to win one of the final three third sets to clinch their second
consecutive national title.
And that’s why this was the perfect way for UCLA to
finally break through. In years past, the Bruins have been the
heavy favorites and lost. So this year they won a match that almost
nobody thought they could win.
To fully understand the significance of this victory,
let’s revisit some of the painful memories of playoffs
past.
There was last year’s final, which came a day after UCLA
registered a historic victory over then-undefeated defending
national champion Illinois.
There was 2003, when not even the death of a kamikaze sparrow
with an apparent Bruin allegiance could help UCLA overcome upstart
Vanderbilt in a marathon NCAA semifinal match.
And there was 1996, when an undefeated Bruin squad suffered its
first loss of the season against Stanford in the NCAA finals.
But all of that is in the past now for UCLA coach Billy Martin
after he watched his team rally against all odds.
First it was Alberto Francis, who pulled his third set out. Then
Philipp Gruendler, down a break in the third set, came back to win
in a tiebreaker. And finally there was Kris Kwinta, who
hadn’t even finished a match in Texas all week during
UCLA’s championship run.
But when it mattered most, the 25-year-old senior came
through.
After dropping the first set, he stormed back to take the second
and the third with his teammates and coaches cheering every
point.
“I just tried to focus on what I had to do,” Kwinta
said. “I couldn’t think about winning or the ring or
the championship or how many years it’s been without a
championship. You have to fight and play out the moment.”
The happiest of all the Bruins had to be Martin, who took over a
program that had won 15 national titles before he became coach. But
Martin, despite five prior appearances in the NCAA Finals, had yet
to win a championship trophy of his own.
That, of course, is forgotten now, along with all the talk of
Baylor’s invincibility.
After the unlikeliest of victories on collegiate tennis’
biggest stage, the Bruins at last are champions again.
And Martin will never again have to answer the question,
“Will this be the year?”
E-mail Quiñonez at
gquiñonez@media.ucla.edu.