The Bruins may have had a decisive 114-2 advantage over both
Arizona schools entering the series this weekend, but the No. 8
UCLA men’s tennis certainly didn’t live up to that
billing, struggling to win 6-1.
The Bruins won all but one of the singles points this weekend,
but did not display a quality of tennis matching their potential,
even dropping the doubles point on Saturday against Arizona.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but we
persevered, got tough, and got through it. We’ll be better
for it.” UCLA coach Billy Martin said.
“It was a good thing to be playing those schools now
because we needed this kind of a weekend after the indoors.”
junior Benjamin Kohlloeffel said.
Entering this weekend, the doubles’ line-up had remained
the same since the beginning of January. But on Saturday against
Arizona State, the No. 3 pair of Mathieu Dehaine and Aaron Yovan
was split up for the match when freshman Michael Look replaced
Yovan. The No. 3 pair had a record of 5-6 so far, playing well
together at National Indoors against LSU and Washington, but coach
Martin wanted a change.
“We’ve been struggling at third doubles. It’s
been a little bit unpredictable really as they have been hot and
cold a little bit.” Martin said of the pair. “For
whatever reason I just wanted to break it up and take a look at
Michael and see how he might do there.”
The move paid off as Dehaine and Look won their doubles match
8-4 over the Sun Devils’ Chris Biro and Wes Miller.
Another highlight was seeing freshman Haythem Abid winning his
singles matches on campus. Abid had lost both of his singles
matches against Pepperdine or San Diego State at home in the
previous weeks.
“I am slowly starting to get used to the coach and playing
here on hard courts.” said Abid, who has spent most of his
life playing on clay.
Although he had never played indoors before, Abid’s only
defeat in Seattle was against Georgia’s John Isner, the
nation’s No. 2 singles player.
“It was an eye-opening experience for him at the
indoors.” Martin said. “He was pretty impressed with
the level up there.”
Unlike other newcomers to the Bruins team, Abid did not get much
time to adjust to playing in Westwood. When other players such as
Bruins’ junior Benjamin Kohlloeffel sat out a year and
therefore had time to get used to college tennis, coach Martin said
that the transition for Abid was slightly different.
“He got off the plane and I said, “˜Hi, nice to meet
you. Now win,'” Martin said.
Playing alongside junior Chris Surapol in doubles, Abid says
that with a bit more aggressiveness and mobility on his part they
could be even better than they already are. Though displaying a
very compatible game, the pair did lose against Arizona on Friday,
against an aggressive and strong No. 2 Cats pair.
“You always have to play at 100 percent as there are no
bad teams.” Abid said.
The Bruins have been playing constantly since January, usually
competing twice a week. For coach Martin’s sake, hopefully
this meet against Arizona and Arizona State has given the team some
competitive time off.
“We were a little bit drained after the indoors, and
it’s a little tough to get used to the outdoors again, quite
honestly.” Martin said.