The NCAA draw is out, and things could have been a lot worse for
the UCLA men’s tennis team.
As the No. 10 seed in the tournament, the defending champions
were granted some of their wishes.
The Bruins will host one of 16 NCAA Regionals at the Los Angeles
Tennis Center on May 13 and 14, and they will stay away from
dangerous teams they could have faced in the Round of 16.
“We are very happy with the draw, as we are comfortable
with the teams we are playing,” redshirt junior Chris Surapol
said.
For their first round, the Bruins will face Stony Brook, while
Arizona and Colorado are scheduled to meet in the other regional at
the LATC.
While the UCLA team feels confident about its first opponent,
who won its first-ever Eastern Conference title this year, the
second round might be a completely different story.
“Arizona is a dangerous school, even if we have already
played them twice this year,” Surapol said.
Colorado, a team the Bruins have never played, could also be
next. If all goes well after that, the Bruins would likely face
seventh-seeded Illinois for their first match at Stanford.
“We know Illinois from last year and they had a good
season, but nothing special,” UCLA coach Billy Martin
said.
There were no teams the Bruins would’ve preferred in the
first rounds, but there were some they undoubtedly wanted to avoid,
and unseeded Washington was one of them.
“We did not want to play Washington for a third time this
season, and we thought we were going to,” Martin said.
The Bruins met the Huskies twice this year, beating them in the
National Indoors but losing 4-3 a few weeks ago in Pac-10 play.
More than a mere conference rival, No. 1 seed Georgia
represented the biggest roadblock for the Bruins in their path to
repeat as national champions.
“With an eighth or ninth seed we could have met Georgia as
soon as the quarterfinals, and I wanted to stay away from them for
as long as possible,” Martin said of the undefeated
Bulldogs.
Their half of the draw did include No. 2 seed Pepperdine,
against which the Bruins folded earlier this season in a close 4-3
decision.
“Pepperdine is obviously a tough possible opponent, but I
don’t think they are as strong as Georgia,” Martin
said.
The Bruins will not face crosstown rival USC this year, as the
Trojans failed to make the NCAA Championships for the first time in
history, leaving UCLA as the only college in the nation to have
qualified each year.
“I don’t know what to expect at the NCAAs, but I
can’t wait to give it a go,” freshman Michael Look said
of his first tournament appearance.