It was only their second tournament playing together as a doubles team.
“It was hot, it was windy, and we were just playing bad,” Mackie McDonald recalled of the Oklahoma City Open finals last June.
McDonald and his doubles partner, Martin Redlicki, were playing against Jesus Bandres and Gonzalo Escobar, a team that had cruised its way into the final round.
The nation’s No.12 doubles pair and No. 1 pair at UCLA said that it was their second performance that epitomizes their style of play and their friendship, and has been their favorite memory of playing doubles together.
After losing the first set by a break, they said their confidence was a little shaken. With both of them feeling like it wasn’t their day, the duo continued to not play well into the second set, and got down two breaks, 0-3. To them, the match was lost at that point.
“I thought the set was done,” Redlicki said. “Winning a set after being down two breaks in doubles is pretty much impossible.”
The pair was able to hold serve the next game making it 1-3. Then on their opponent’s serve they were able to carry it to deuce. Because of the rules of the tournament, games are won by best of seven points and the returning side gets to choose who receives the ball when it is deuce.
The two, having met at the USTA Training Center in Boca Raton, Fla., have been hitting and playing practice sets with each other for over five years, so they know each other’s game pretty well.
“I will take the serve on … just because I am little better at returning than (Redlicki), and (Redlicki) is better at putting away points,” McDonald said. “It works out nicely in those situations.”
So it was decided that McDonald would return the serve, and Redlicki would look to close the point.
Their opponent served, and McDonald made the return at the guy at the net. The player at the net hit a volley at Redlicki’s feet. Redlicki, reacting quickly, hit the ball between his legs. By some miracle, the ball hit the cord of the net, Redlicki said, and went over. Their opponent at the net was so surprised the ball came over that he missed the volley, and McDonald and Redlicki broke back. The score was now 2-3.
Redlicki, hyped after winning the point, turned to McDonald and said, “Mackie, we’re winning this match – it’s a sign. We’re winning this match.”
Win, they did, carrying the second set to a tie breaker, winning that and putting away the third set tie breaker. The final score was 4-6, 7-6(3), 10-8.
That was a match they said helped them see they were going to work as a doubles team.
Whereas most of the doubles pairings on the UCLA men’s tennis team are chosen by coach Billy Martin, McDonald and Redlicki chose each other. After McDonald’s freshman year, he asked Redlicki, before Redlicki had even started at UCLA, if he wanted to be his doubles partner for the pro tournaments McDonald was going to play in the summer of 2014.
McDonald, a sophomore, is currently the No. 3 singles player in the nation, and Redlicki, a freshman, has had phenomenal year positing a 16-3 record this dual match season. So even though they have both been very good singles players this season, Martin said it is rare to find young, very good doubles teams.
Martin said players typically come into college with poor doubles skills because the junior tennis circuit focuses primarily on singles. But this year, he said, Redlicki and McDonald have been a pleasant surprise and he liked that they wanted each other as doubles partners.
“We began the year with (McDonald) and (Redlicki) having played a lot during the summer and having good success,” Martin said. “Their games were very complimentary. We knew their chemistry was good, and they both wanted to play with each other, so it just made a lot of sense to have them keep playing together.”
They said what has made them so successful this year is not only that they know each other so well, but also that their games are polar opposites.
“We are pretty opposite types of players,” Redlicki said. “Our different play styles complement each other when we play doubles.”
Where one area of Redlicki’s game is lacking, McDonald makes up for it, and vice versa. For instance, Redlicki said he has a good serve and strong forehand, whereas McDonald is great at returning serves and has a consistent backhand. It also helps that McDonald is right-handed and Redlicki is left-handed.
When the two of them look back at winning the tournament in Oklahoma, they said that if they didn’t have each other to push themselves to fight, they would not have won. They credit their friendship and their differences.
With a current 18-6 record this season, the duo is ending the season going to the 2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championships for doubles at the end of May.