Senior Dennis Mkrtchian is well aware of the rivalry between UCLA and Baylor tennis. During his four years at UCLA, Mkrtchian has grown accustomed to the Bears’ gritty playing style.
“They’re a fighting team, they’re as physical as it comes,” Mkrtchian said. “They love to grind, they love to make you hit a million balls if they have to, they’ll do whatever it takes to win. … That’s something that I really respect.”
Baylor has earned that respect throughout the past decade, leading UCLA 8-5 in an all-time series that included two NCAA final matchups in 2004 and 2005. After those two consecutive meetings in the national championship, UCLA coach Billy Martin and Baylor coach Matt Knoll decided to pit their teams against each other once a year, alternating home and away.
Having lost 4-2 to Baylor last year in Los Angeles, the No. 12 Bruins (6-4) will face the No. 5 Bears (6-2) this Sunday on the outdoor courts in Waco, Texas where the NCAA tournament will be held this May. After a 1-2 performance at last weekend’s ITA Division I National Men’s Team Indoor Championship, the Baylor match is a good opportunity for UCLA’s young squad to prove itself against a top team, Mkrtchian said.
“Hopefully we can get back on track and also show that indoors was more of a fluke than anything,” Mkrtchian said. “We’re more of an outdoors team and I think we’ll show that throughout the season.”
But Baylor, who defeated No. 4 Virginia and No. 7 Duke at the ITA Indoors, is also a team suited for outdoor action, Martin said.
“They’ve got really good players with good groundstrokes, they’re pretty darn quick whereas generally the bigger servers, the slower players that like to come in and make the points shorter would benefit more from indoors,” Martin said. “(The Bears) always have their courts really slow, which is suited for better groundstrokers and more outdoor play.”
In addition to being good outdoors teams, both squads boast impressive doubles play, with Baylor having taken all eight doubles points this year and UCLA winning eight of 10. Martin said the early season results represent vast improvement from previous years, in which neither program had particularly strong doubles.
“(Knoll and I) always kid each other about how we’re not really good in doubles,” Martin said. “Last year when we were playing here, we were joking about it because it came down to the last doubles match but it really wasn’t good doubles, or classic doubles. It was more what I call ‘singles doubles’ – good singles players trying to play doubles. But obviously maybe we’re doing something right this year with our doubles, me and him.”
The match will provide a chance for the Bruins to get familiar with the courts they hope to play on in May’s NCAA tournament. It will be their fourth straight match on the road, but the previous three were at a neutral site at the ITA Indoors.
“It’s definitely tougher (on the road), you kind of have the crowd going against you as well,” said sophomore Joseph Di Giulio. “But at the same time, it’s a fun atmosphere because you don’t get that much in tennis outside of these big college matches.”