UCLA men’s tennis will close out its regular season home schedule by hosting UC San Diego Wednesday.
Senior Clay Thompson and freshman Mackenzie McDonald will be missing from the lineup. UCLA’s men’s tennis coach Billy Martin said that, by playing against UCSD, both players would be ineligible to play against USC on Friday, given how many games each has played during the 2013-2014 season. Caps on games played will not be applied toward the Pac-12 or NCAA tournaments, however.
Martin named freshman Michael Guzman, redshirt sophomore Ryoto Tachi and senior Brendan Wee as players likely to see court time because of the lineup changes brought by Thompson and McDonald’s absences.
The match serves as only the third home game for UCLA since the start of the Pac-12 season in late March. UCLA’s lone home stand after the start of conference play this year came about two weeks ago, in 4-1 and 4-0 victories over Cal and Stanford on consecutive days.
According to Martin, the No. 3 Bruins added the Tritons, a Division II team, to its schedule in the last few weeks as a way to avoid a four-day layoff leading into a match against the Trojans that will decide the Pac-12’s regular season champion.
Compiled by Emilio Ronquillo, Bruin Sports senior staff.