When the season started, UCLA men’s tennis coach Billy
Martin knew it was going to be like this.
He knew his players had talent, but he also knew that they
lacked experience, and he was curious to see how they would respond
in pressure-packed situations.
After the No. 4 Bruins’ first road trip of the season, the
jury is still out.
UCLA defeated No. 17 Cal 6-1 on Friday, before dropping its
first match of the season on Saturday in a 4-3 loss to No. 12
Stanford.
“Those are character-building matches,” Martin said.
“They’re good lessons for us to learn.”
With the Stanford match tied 3-3, sophomore Jeremy Drean lost
7-5, 6-4 to Chris Rasmussen at No. 6 to seal UCLA’s fate. The
loss was the first of the season for the Bruins (4-1), who had won
12 consecutive matches dating back to last year.
“It’s one of those things where experience is going
to pay off,” Martin said. “It’s only going to
make him better and stronger.”
After Friday’s exhausting victory over Cal (2-1), which
was much closer than the final score indicated, several Bruins
didn’t have much left for Saturday’s match against the
Cardinal.
Following emotional three-set victories against Cal, both
sophomore Mathieu Dehaine and freshman Haythem Abid lost in
straight sets against Stanford (3-0).
Martin said Abid had been a magician to fight back for a 3-6,
6-4, 6-3 win over Cal’s Lennart Maack. After losing the first
set, Abid promptly fell behind two breaks in the second set at
1-4.
Though the Bruin coach had essentially written off the young
freshman, Abid stormed back to actually clinch the team victory for
the defending champions.
Drean also won a three-set match against the Bears, defeating
Eoin Heavey 6-7(5), 6-0, 6-3.
Against the Cardinal, UCLA once again won the doubles point.
The team has yet to lose the doubles point in its five matches
this season, a fact that has Martin very pleased.
But subpar singles play sealed the Bruins’ fate.
Juniors Ben Kohlloeffel and Chris Surapol, whom Martin called
the most valuable player of the weekend, won their singles matches
in straight sets, but Abid, Dehaine, Drean and junior Philipp
Gruendler all lost in straight sets.
“We need to keep working hard on conditioning if we want
to have success at the Indoors and the NCAAs,” Martin said.
“I don’t expect us to be in nearly as good of shape now
as we will be in April and May.”
Martin said that it’s always difficult to play matches on
back-to-back days, and even more so to do it early in the season
against two talented teams.
That’s why the Bruin coach isn’t putting much
emphasis on the loss.
He’ll chalk it up as a learning opportunity and a chance
for young players to get more experience, and the team will move
on.