The Bruins have quailifed for the indoor championships.
No. 6 UCLA men’s tennis (6-0) qualified for the ITA Division I National Men’s Team Indoor Championships on Sunday after earning two 4-0 sweeps against UC Davis and Utah State at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend.
Junior Maxime Cressy went undefeated, winning one singles match and two doubles matches. He beat UC Davis’ Chethan Swanson 6-0, 6-2 in singles.
“It was a good weekend for me,” Cressy said. “I played really well, I was mentally really tough and fought hard on all my points. I kept being very focused and I hung in there and went for every shot.”
With the first couple of matches out of the way, Cressy said he still sees improvements he needs to make to do well in the playoffs come May.
“Overall, I was very proud of myself,” Cressy said. “However, I still need to work on my first-serve percentages and returns.”
Senior Martin Redlicki , ranked the No. 1 overall player in the nation, won his two singles and doubles matches this weekend.“We got two resounding wins,” Redlicki said. “We showed the rest of the country that we are playing well and are a dangerous team moving forward. I was moving forward well and attacking short balls well.”
Coach Billy Martin said he was impressed with what he saw from the Bruins this weekend, especially with the many small injuries that happened over the last two weeks.
“I’m pretty happy because I know these are important matches for us and we have to earn each year,” Martin said. “We looked sharp both days and doubles also looked good. We had some small injuries especially with (senior Austin Rapp) but he looked sharp this weekend.”
In the championship game against Utah State, sophomore Evan Zhu won 6-4, 6-4 against Sergiu Bucur and No. 55 senior Logan Staggs won 6-2, 6-3 against Jose Carvajal in singles three and four, respectively.
UCLA next plays Stanford in Stanford, California, on Feb. 4 before coming back home for their match against UNLV.