It will have happened eight months ago next week, but for some
it could have been yesterday.
The memories are still so vivid. Trailing 3-1, no hope, no
chance. Yet another year of disappointment.
Then, the unthinkable.
The comeback. The glory. The national championship.
“I can still look back as clear as can be, that match
against Baylor,” UCLA men’s tennis coach Billy Martin
said. “I can close my eyes and it’s right there. And it
probably always will be, as special a moment as that
was.”
For a team that hadn’t won a national title since 1984,
despite four previous appearances in the championship match and a
handful of trips to the semifinals, it certainly was special.
For a coach widely regarded as one of the nation’s best to
never win it all, last season’s improbable 4-3 victory over
Baylor is the kind of victory that Martin could use to define his
coaching career.
But he doesn’t.
He can’t.
Because when the defending champion fifth-ranked Bruins open the
season today against San Diego, it will be abundantly clear that
what happened in Texas didn’t happen yesterday. It happened
eight months ago, and things have changed since then.
“It’s a great feeling, but I’ve never been one
to sort of rest my laurels on what my team has done and what I have
done,” Martin said. “It’s a new year. We’ve
got to prove ourselves and keep our program really
strong.”
It’s a curious thing to hear a team that sits squarely
atop the college tennis world talk about proving itself, but
that’s exactly how these Bruins view this season.
Gone from last season are four seniors ““ four players who
were absolutely instrumental in the NCAA title run.
Their absence means four of six starting positions will be taken
by players with hardly the experience of their predecessors.
“Every day you go out and you’re missing Luben
(Pampoulov), Alberto (Francis), Chris Lam, (Kris) Kwinta,”
said junior Philipp Gruendler, one of two returning starters from
last season. “It’s not the team that won a national
championship, so it feels far away.”
Gruendler, who played at No. 6 last season, and German
countryman Ben Kohlloeffel, UCLA’s unquestioned No. 1 player
this season and the preseason No. 3 player in the nation, figure to
anchor a team full of inexperience.
“We can’t let down just because we lost four
seniors,” Kohlloeffel said. “We have no reason for
that. We have a deep team.”
But it is a team that will have to rely on inexperience if it
hopes to challenge for another title, and Martin has a number of
players to choose from to fill the vacated starting spots. Juniors
Chris Surapol and Aaron Yovan, sophomores Mathieu Dehaine, Andrew
Eklov and Jeremy Drean, and freshman Haythem Abid are all in the
mix for a starting spot.
Abid, the No. 1-ranked tennis player in Tunisia, recently became
eligible for the winter quarter, and Martin said he should make an
immediate impact for the Bruins at either the No. 2 or No. 3
position. In fact, Martin expects Abid will give the Bruins an
opportunity to compete with the nation’s best yet again.
Surapol, who redshirted last season, is relishing his
opportunity to finally make a serious contribution to the
team’s success.
“While competing for spots, everybody has helped each
other ““ in the gym, in running, in pushing each other to
finish everything,” Surapol said. “A lot of it comes
from last year because we want that energy to carry
through.”
For much of the fall tennis season, the Bruins, who are without
a senior on their roster, were preparing themselves for the dual
match season without Abid or Eklov.
Then Abid came to UCLA and Eklov transferred from Illinois.
Suddenly, roster positions that people thought were theirs became a
lot less secure.
“It really hit me,” Surapol said. “I’ve
got to be ready. Once you get your shot, you’ve got to
perform. You can’t just make the lineup and be
satisfied.”
Martin has already seen a level of maturity developing in his
more inexperienced players throughout the fall season, and
he’s confident they will continue to make significant strides
as the season progresses.
“If we could have a year where we had four seniors, that
would be great,” Martin said. “But that’s not the
case. It’s certainly a little bit of a building year, a
maturing year. But from a coaching standpoint it’s a real
challenge, and that’s something I’m excited
for.”
With so many questions remaining about the eventual makeup of
the starting lineup, one place Martin won’t have to worry
about is the No. 1 spot.
That belongs to Kohlloeffel, who had an incredible fall season
and has won the last three major tournaments he has entered.
Kohlloeffel, who didn’t lose a match in last season’s
NCAA Tournament, became the first UCLA player to capture the
singles title at the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor
Championships in October.
“It’s always good to know that you have a No. 1
player actually, and not just someone that you put there and can
switch every match,” said Gruendler, who is also
Kohlloeffel’s doubles teammate. “We know that
he’s our No. 1 player and we can build up on him.”
But that doesn’t mean that the soft-spoken junior is the
unquestioned leader of the Bruins.
“We just have to present ourselves as a team, and
that’s the most important thing,” Kohlloeffel said.
“It’s not like I’m the leader here and everybody
else is not. That’s not the way it’s supposed to
be.”
The way it’s supposed to be is the way it was eight months
ago.
“Maybe because we won it, you don’t want it to start
up just a little bit,” Martin said with a laugh.
But the Bruin coach wasn’t, and isn’t, finished. He
finally got his championship, but this season presents a whole new
challenge and a whole new chance.
“Now we’ve got to get back onto it and get
going,” he said.