Two days before their loss to Oklahoma in the NCAA semifinals, two days before a pair of lost tiebreakers put an end to their 2014 season, UCLA men’s tennis found itself in an eerily familiar situation.
Facing No. 3 Ohio State in the quarterfinals, UCLA dropped the doubles point and the No. 1 singles match to fall into a 2-0 hole. What’s more, the Bruins were playing indoors against one of the best indoor teams in the nation, one that had earlier in the year won the National Indoor Championships.
“We were really playing at a disadvantage there,” said coach Billy Martin. “Playing against a team that plays so much indoors, we kind of had the cards stacked against us.”
But under the pressure of falling behind against one of the nation’s most talented teams, the Bruins didn’t flinch, for they have often found themselves in such situations this year. In their seven matches against top-10 teams this season, the Bruins fell behind four times. And in all but one of those situations, UCLA came back to win the match.
Four straight singles victories over Ohio State later, the Bruins had inexplicably done it again. As freshman Gage Brymer said, the comeback was “unreal.”
It was as if the Bruins had returned to early March, when the team was off to a 10-1 start despite struggling in doubles play. In the absence of doubles wins, strong play from senior Clay Thompson and junior Marcos Giron led the team in singles.
But on March 6, playing against Virginia in an emotional rematch of last year’s NCAA championship, things began to click in doubles. Before the match, the team’s captains urged Martin to reshuffle the doubles teams – and it worked.
In the 12 regular-season matches from that point forward, UCLA would lose only three more doubles points. And in the last match of the regular season, the Bruin doubles lineup was further strengthened.
Adrien Puget, the senior who had been absent for the majority of the season with patellar tendinitis, made the decision to burn his redshirt and come back for the season’s home stretch. As the team’s best doubles player, Puget made an immediate impact.
In the regular-season finale against USC, Puget helped the Bruins win the doubles point – something they had failed to do in their previous two matches against the Trojans. And though the team would go on to lose that match, Puget would come through on a bigger stage a week later. Playing his first singles match of the year in the Pac-12 championship, Puget was central in UCLA’s victory.
According to redshirt sophomore Karue Sell, Puget’s return was crucial for the Bruins, something that allowed them to significantly elevate their doubles play from that point forward. Indeed, the team would not lose in doubles again until its comeback against Ohio State.
But that match was fateful for more than the simple fact that the Bruins came back from a deficit. The manner of that comeback was also significant, in terms of both the Bruins’ past season and their future ones.
After Puget and Sell won to draw UCLA even, the match was passed into the hands of freshmen Mackenzie McDonald and Brymer. They did not falter, McDonald won his match to make the score 3-2 and Brymer won his third match point to send the Bruins to the semifinals.
It was yet another instance of the Bruin freshmen stepping up at crucial points, something they did all season long. Indeed, McDonald, Brymer and freshman Joseph Di Giulio paved the way for much of the Bruins’ success this season, stepping up and ably filling holes in the lineup.
With the departure of Dennis Novikov – who turned professional – and injuries to Puget and junior Dennis Mkrtchian, UCLA played most of the year without three of last year’s best players. But thanks to their three freshmen, the Bruins barely missed a step.
From McDonald’s strong 28-7 record to Di Giulio’s third-set win that sealed the match against the then-No. 4 Georgia to Brymer’s decisive victory against Ohio State, the Bruin freshmen were “instrumental” to the team’s success, as Martin said.
How well the three responded to their trial by fire gives Martin confidence for the year ahead.
“To surmount the obstacles of losing three of the top players from last year, to rely on three freshmen to do an incredible job for the team,” Martin said, “We may not have gotten to the finals or won the championship, but I still think we had a great year.”