It is difficult to please Billy Martin.
After a weekend in which Martin’s Bruins were victorious in the first and second round of the NCAA Tournament, defeating Sacramento State and California each by a score of 4-0, the UCLA men’s tennis coach knows that his team could have performed at a much higher level.
“I didn’t expect us to be super sharp with almost three weeks off,” said Martin after Sunday’s second-round victory over Cal.
“I think we really came out kind of flat-footed and with not much emotion in the doubles, and it showed.”
And despite UCLA’s capturing of the doubles point Sunday, Martin felt like the victory was more due to fortune than solid play.
“We were so very lucky to have won that doubles point,” he said.
After the Bruins and Bears split a pair of doubles matches on court 1 and court 3, the doubles point hinged on the match on court 2, where UCLA seniors Haythem Abid and Matt Brooklyn were in a tussle with Cal’s Nick Andrews and Chris Konigsfeldt.
Konigsfeldt and Andrews seemed to be on their way to a moderately easy victory, leading 7-4, and serving at match point.
Unfortunately for the Bears, moderately easy turned into moderately embarrassing.
Abid and Brooklyn stormed back to take the next five points and win the match, 9-7, awarding UCLA the doubles point and the early lead.
“We just hung in there and made them play, and we would see if they got nervous,” Brooklyn said. “We stayed aggressive and good things just started happening, and we rolled with it.”
From that point on in the match, it was downhill for the Bears.
Cal lost the first set in each of the six singles matches, culminating in a shutout victory for the Bruins.
“Obviously that was a big momentum change in the match,” said Brooklyn of his and Abid’s comeback doubles victory.
“They were really pumped up coming out, but after that they sort of were deflated.”
Martin echoed the sentiments of his senior, commenting that Cal’s intensity seemed to drop off after failing to capture the doubles point.
“It can take the wind right out of your sails,” said Martin of Cal’s close loss on court 2 in doubles.
“You’re so close you think you’re going to win it, and at the very end it turns around. So I’m sure it was tough for them,” he said.
But despite their sluggish performance, both Martin and Brooklyn are confident that this weekend’s matches helped prepare them for their Round of 16 match against Stanford on Friday.
The Cardinal dispatched Pepperdine Sunday, 4-0.
“Everyone’s getting healthy, which is good,” Brooklyn said. “We played pretty solid this weekend. We started off a little slow (Sunday) in doubles, but we managed to come through pretty strong in the end and that carried to singles.”
“I think everyone’s optimistic about Georgia now.”