Road struggles no more.
After being 1-3 on the road before this weekend and losing its previous road matches against Virginia and USC 4-0 and 4-1, respectively, the No. 10 UCLA men’s tennis team (14-4, 3-0 Pac-12) picked up its first marquee road victory this season, beating No. 19 Stanford (13-5, 3-1) Sunday afternoon 4-2.
Freshman Evan Zhu played the hero role and clinched the match by besting Stanford’s David Wilczynski 6-4, 7-6(5). Zhu said he mixed up his shots and didn’t feed to Wilczynski’s forehand, and his win broke a personal three-match road losing streak.
“I thought I was moving him pretty well and side to side. He really liked his forehand so I kept trying to get to his backhand,” Zhu said. “It was a tight match. I feel like winning this away game will give me a huge boost of confidence for my future matches.”
[Related: UCLA men’s tennis extends win streak to 10-0 for home matches]
Coach Billy Martin said he was disappointed about how his team dropped another doubles point against Stanford, but overall was happy about the team’s singles performance, especially Zhu’s.
“It’s ironic that this is our sixth straight time playing Stanford where we continued to lose the doubles point, but the team refused to give in and we came back. I was really proud of the team that they didn’t lose focus at all and came out playing well in singles,” Martin said. “I was really proud of (Zhu). I don’t think he reacted well at USC and in an hostile environment. Today he really stepped up and played the best tennis I’ve seen in a while.”
Against the Cardinal in February, junior Logan Staggs clinched the Bruins’ win with a three-set victory over Jack Barber. Staggs was able to repeat his home success and beat Michael Genender 6-3, 7-5.
[Related: UCLA men’s tennis topples Stanford despite injured, ill players]
“I played very well. I was always in control of the match,” Staggs said. “I felt that I played a good match and have no complaints. I came forward a little bit more than usual and focused on being offensive.”
On the No. 1 and No. 2 singles courts, senior Gage Brymer lost to Stanford’s Tom Fawcett 6-2, 6-1, while junior Martin Redlicki won his sixth straight singles match 7-6(5), 6-4.
UCLA was slated to play California on Friday but that dual match was canceled because of rain and will be made up at a later time per the team’s Twitter.
The Bruins have three more home matches before the regular season ends, with them slated to play Utah, Arizona and No. 5 USC.