Athens, Ga. — Apparently, Mother Nature has a thing for raining on the Bruins’ parade.
But this time, UCLA was provided an umbrella.
After a bizarre rainstorm that lasted all of fifteen seconds forced the UCLA-Stanford NCAA round of 16 match indoors, the Bruin men’s tennis team was able to carry the momentum it had established outside, although barely, onto the indoor courts and dispatch of the No. 8 seeded Cardinal, 4-2.
“It seems like the last five or six times we’ve played them, it’s gone down to the wire like that,” UCLA coach Billy Martin said after the match. “It’s a really competitive rivalry and a really great rivalry. We’re lucky to win.”
Stanford coach John Whitlinger reiterated Martin’s thoughts, commenting on the rivalry that has become Stanford versus UCLA.
“It was just another great Stanford-UCLA match,” Whitlinger said. “The last times we played each other it’s also been a five-hour match, and we’ve come up lucky sometimes and they’ve come up lucky sometimes. They got us today.”
On Thursday, UCLA coach Billy Martin stressed the importance of capturing the doubles point in Friday’s match, seeing as how Stanford’s singles are its strong suit. And the Bruins were able to do just that, clinching the doubles point after winning a tiebreak on court No. 3, with redshirt freshman Alex Brigham and junior Holden Seguso taking down Cardinal duo of Matt Kandath and Denis Lin, 9-8 (5).
Once singles began, the Bruins had the momentum, while Stanford still seemed to be reeling from the doubles defeat. On courts three through six, UCLA players won the first set, and on courts one and two, Cardinal players barely squeaked out first set wins.
Then things got weird.
An quick and unexpected rainstorm came crashing down over the match, wetting all of the courts and forcing the two teams to move to the inside courts at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex on the campus of the University of Georgia.
And once play resumed, Stanford began to play like the top 10 team that they are.
After singles wins for the Cardinal on courts one and two, and singles wins for UCLA in the four and five positions, the overall score became 3-2 in favor of UCLA, with only two matches left.
Playing in the six slot, UCLA freshman Maxime Tabatruong, who won the first set over Stanford’s Greg Hirshman and led 3-1 in the second set, seemed to lose all composure. With the score tied 3-3, Tabatruong called for the trainer, who seemed to be trying to simply cool the freshman off by putting a towel on his forehead.
“(Tabatruong) just lost it mentally in my opinion,” Martin said. “I just couldn’t get him focused and it just seemed like he was going faster and faster and wanted to get out of there.”
Soon enough, all eyes were on court No. 3, where UCLA senior Matt Brooklyn was up against Stanford’s Alex Clayton, a former NCAA All-American.
Having won the first set, 6-2, and having lost the second set in a tiebreak, Brooklyn seemed to be UCLA’s last hope, as Tabatruong had fallen back 3-1 in the third set of his match.
The most decisive moment of the match between Brooklyn and Clayton came with the score tied 3-3. Brooklyn was serving and Clayton had earned himself two game points. Fortunately for a reeling UCLA squad, Brooklyn fought off both game points to take a 4-3 lead, and went on to win the third set 6-3, giving the Bruins the victory.
“I wanted to make sure that I took the (match) into my hands and I won it or lost it because of me,” Brooklyn said.
After the match, both coaches were asked just how much the switch from outdoors to indoors affected their teams.
“That’s not tough,” Whitlinger said. “The guys were ready. It’s not that hard for them to go outside to inside. Give all the credit to UCLA. They came through when they had to.”
“I think it helped us in a couple matches,” Martin said. “It’s always going to affect someone, you just don’t know who it’s going to affect. Some games are better suited for (indoors).”
Next up for the Bruins is the nation’s No. 1 team and the Tournament’s top seed, Virginia, which has only lost one match all season.
However, Martin does not seem in the least bit worried about having to face the nation’s best on Sunday.
“We’ve watched a lot of their players the past two or three years and they’ve been a dominant, dominant team for many years now,” Martin said. “Certainly they’re favored, and I think we can go out real relaxed, loose, and have nothing to lose. Nobody’s expecting us to win and I always love being in that position. (For Virginia) it’s either going to be a bad loss or expected win.”