Regardless of how young or inexperienced the UCLA men’s
tennis team is considered to be, winning in convincing fashion has
become a standard.
On Friday, the No. 5 Bruins (3-0) made sure to live up to that
expectation by defeating No. 28 Boise State 6-1.
With the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles being split, the No. 1 doubles
team of Benjamin Kohlloeffel and Philipp Gruendler made sure to
claim the first point of an 8-5 victory over the nation’s
seventh-ranked duo of Luke Shields and Thomas Schoeck.
“They hung in there and played a lot better at the end of
the match and really finished off strong,” coach Billy Martin
said of the juniors.
The majority of the Bruins carried the momentum of the doubles
point into singles play, taking early leads over their
opponents.
Kohlloeffel, ranked third in the nation, took on No. 13 Luke
Shields in a rematch of last year’s NCAA Round of 16, in
which Kohlloeffel fought back after losing the first set in a
tiebreaker to win 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-2.
Friday’s match was nothing of the sort. The defending
victor finished his match in dominating fashion, winning 6-0,
6-0.
“I won easily and I played really well,” Kohlloeffel
said. “I almost lost to him in the NCAAs last year and
that’s why I wanted to play extra well today.”
The junior maintained his composure and offensive strategy
throughout the match while forcing Shields to play defensively, not
giving him any pace to counter-punch with.
His victory gave UCLA a quick 2-0 lead, and spectators a glimpse
of one of his best matches played as a Bruin.
“That’s a very good opponent that Ben played, and he
probably played as good a match as I’ve seen him play at
UCLA, if that’s possible ““ he’s played a lot of
good ones,” Martin said.
Just minutes after redshirt junior Chris Surapol gave the Bruins
a 3-0 lead with a 6-1, 6-2 victory at No. 5, sophomore Mathieu
Dehaine secured the Bruins’ third dual match win with a 6-1,
6-2 showing against Clancy Shields, Luke Shields’
brother.
“Personally, it was important for me to win that match
because we lost our doubles match,” Dehaine said. “I
was really aggressive throughout the beginning and it went well so
I kept playing the same way.”
Although it was a match that had no overall impact to the
outcome, freshman Haythem Abid of Tunisia found himself in perhaps
the most exciting match of the afternoon.
After dropping the first set, Abid adjusted to Schoeck’s
style and brought the match to a tie at one set apiece before
taking control of a tiebreaker in the third set, eventually winning
1-6, 6-3, 7-6(3).
“I couldn’t play my game at the beginning,”
Abid said. “In the second set, I got used to it a little bit
and in the third set, I was up a break but I couldn’t finish
it. Luckily, I played a really good tiebreaker and won.”
Luck, however, is something on which the Bruins have had to
depend very little so far this season, as they have cruised to
victories over competitive teams from the onset.
And, although Boise State was expected to be one of the
Bruins’ tougher opponents this year, the team seemed to be
prepared enough to put to rest any doubts about the team’s
resilience.
“We’re actually playing really strong teams at the
beginning of the year, which is very hard for us because we have a
young team, but we’re playing very well,” Abid
said.