A year after getting within a foot of becoming national champions, the men’s tennis team fell four points short of its second straight title-game berth.
UCLA surrendered consecutive third-set tiebreakers on courts one and six in falling to No. 2-seeded Oklahoma on Monday night. The 4-2 defeat concluded a 26-4 season that featured UCLA winning the Pac-12 championship and earning the No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Assistant coach Grant Chen said that besting an opponent of Oklahoma’s caliber required spotless play from UCLA. And then some.
“Against these very good teams, you have to be firing on all cylinders and everything has to be clicking,” Chen said. “To have everything fall into place, you need a little bit of luck. That’s just sometimes how things fall.”
Senior Clay Thompson and redshirt sophomore Karue Sell appeared to have everything in place at different junctures during their singles matches. But each player would find himself on the losing end of a 7-5 third-set tiebreaker.
Thompson opened with a 6-0 first set that called to mind the potential of the No. 1 player in the nation. But the match went away from him, as Thompson lost four straight games to open a second set that finished at 6-2. A tight third set followed: Thompson utilized his serve to erase a 6-5 deficit and force a tiebreaker. Thompson reached 5-5 in the tiebreaker, but would not get any closer.
Two consecutive losses at the net followed, sealing UCLA’s fate. Thompson had no position to volley on the first, and he connected with the net on the second, his final dual match point as a Bruin.
Sell led his third set at 5-2, and could have served for his match at 5-3 after overcoming a first-set loss against an opponent that Chen said rose to the occasion. Coach Billy Martin assessed that Sell’s match proved longer than expected and increased the pressure on Thompson.
The night began much like it ended. UCLA dropped a doubles point that saw no Bruins pair lose by more than two games.
Three decisive singles games led to a 2-2 tie before Sell’s defeat. Senior Adrien Puget provided UCLA’s first match point with a straight set victory, while junior Marcos Giron suffered a 6-4, 6-2 defeat in giving Oklahoma a 2-1 advantage. Freshman Mackenzie McDonald then submitted a 6-4, 6-4 win to give the Bruins their final tie and point of the night.
Puget, who served for championship point in last year’s title game loss, viewed Oklahoma as a great team throughout the season, especially on Monday night.
“They’re better than us today … but I believe we’re the better team overall,” Puget said. “But today, it wasn’t our day.”
Martin found nothing to be upset over. The coach said he will not dwell over another defeat deep into the NCAA tournament.
“Life will continue on. We’ll move forward and it still was a great season for us,” Martin said. “I’m proud of the guys, and I think we represented UCLA admirably.”