Martin Redlicki tried to chase down a crosscourt forehand but stopped dead in his tracks.
He immediately grabbed his back. Redlicki, up 4-2 at the time, lost his mobility and was unable to return any shot more than an arm’s length away from him.
Only after losing the next two games and spending two timeouts with the trainer did the junior regain any resemblance of movement on the court. And from there on out, Redlicki cruised to a straight sets victory over Grand Canyon’s Francois Musitelli.
“He didn’t put a jacket on to stay warm,” said coach Billy Martin. “In 10, 15 minutes, in this kind of weather after playing a set of doubles, you can chill down and that’s where you can get those types of muscle spasms.”
[Related: Duke’s loss of Redlicki is UCLA’s gain]
No. 7 UCLA men’s tennis (1-0), on the other hand, stayed warm throughout its season-opening dual match, sweeping all three doubles courts and six singles courts for the 7-0 win over Grand Canyon (0-1) Wednesday afternoon.
The bout also featured the dual-match debut of freshman Evan Zhu, who paired with Redlicki at No. 1 doubles and competed at No. 3 singles. Zhu missed several forehands and allowed Grand Canyon’s Adrian Legarreta to break his first service game, losing the first set 6-3. After feeling nervous for the start of singles, the freshman rallied for a three-set victory.
“I think I felt a little bit of nerves for my first college dual match, but I wasn’t playing that well,” Zhu said. “I just kept on fighting, kept it close in the second (set) and ended up pulling the second out.”
Once Zhu won his second-set tiebreaker, the rest of the team gathered behind his court, cheering him on point after point. Behind that support, the freshman ran away with the third-set super tiebreaker 10-3.
“That definitely gives me a lot of confidence and gives me a lot of energy when they’re doing that,” Zhu said.
While the final score was one-sided, the Bruins were all tied or down midway through their first sets of singles, with the exception of senior Gage Brymer.
Brymer – ranked No. 11 in the country – easily defeated Mathieu Rajaonah 6-2, 6-2, at No. 1 singles.
UCLA’s senior captain backed Rajaonah deep behind the baseline and into the corners with his groundstrokes, forcing his opponent to hit weak lobs that were automatic points for Brymer.
“My game plan going in was just to get a good start to my season and grind out some points and play really strong tennis from the baseline,” Brymer said. “I tried to get to the net as much as possible. From the very first game, I thought I did that and it worked out well throughout the match.”
Brymer won the ITA Southwest Regional Championship in October and defeated four other top-100 players in the fall. That was the primary reason, Martin said, that Brymer played at the top singles court instead of Redlicki, who shared time at No. 1 and No. 2 last season.
[Related: UCLA finishes its preseason tournament schedule with several strong performances]
“I feel like we have two No. 1’s, but I just feel Gage really deserves to start,” Martin said. “I have to wipe the slate clean as we start every year and let the guys prove themselves. I think for right now, Gage has proved himself.”
UCLA’s next match will be Saturday against UCSB, which enters 2-0 after sweeping San Diego State and Hawaii last weekend.