It wasn’t pretty, but at least the No. 7 UCLA tennis team
is back on the winning track.
The Bruins defeated the San Diego State Aztecs 4-3 on Monday at
the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
“We needed to win this one; three in a row would have not
been good at all,” coach Billy Martin said.
Tuesday’s match was not all smiles for the Bruins. After
jumping off to an early 3-1 lead, the Bruins let the Aztecs get
back into the match, taking the remaining three matches into a
third set.
“It started off looking good for our team and then our No.
3 and then No. 2 lost their games, so at one point I thought it
could even get down to the last match to finish,” Martin
said.
It did not get that far however, as UCLA’s No. 1 singles
player Benjamin Kohlloeffel, a junior, won his match
6-1, 4-6, 6-2 despite a hotly disputed call argued over by his
opponent, which could have destabilized him.
“I was up all the time but let go of a few points that
happened to give him a break.” Kohlloeffel said.
Freshman Haythem Abid and sophomore Mathieu Dehaine both lost
their matches, with Abid falling in three sets 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, while
Dehaine lost in straight sets 1-6, 5-7.
“I am very disappointed with No. 2 and 3 because they did
not fight any discouragement away,” Martin said.
“The scoreboard showed that things were unlikely to go
their way today, but I felt as though they gave up too
early.”
Abid, who got on campus at the beginning of this quarter and
played his first game for the Bruins a mere two weeks after
arrival, has now lost three single matches in a row.
The fact that Abid is undefeated in doubles alongside junior
Chris Surapol and has showed fantastic skills on court, though,
leads Martin to believe that the issue might be elsewhere.
“I think Abid is having a bit of a confidence problem at
the moment and today it looked as though he did not find the will
to win.”
But all was not as gray as the clouds over the Los Angeles
Tennis Center toward the end of the match on Tuesday.
After losing the doubles point for the first time of the season
against Pepperdine last week, No. 2 Abid/Surapol secured their win
expressively 8-1, while No. 1 Bruin pair Gruendler/Kohlloeffel won
their game 8-4 to secure the first point of the game. Junior Aaron
Yovan and Dehaine lost their doubles match 8-4.
“Philipp (Gruendler) had the best doubles match I have
ever seen him play today,” Martin said.
The Bruins leave today for Seattle, where they will compete in
the National Indoor Championships.
“It is tough to play knowing you are leaving for a big
tournament the next day,” Kohlloeffel said. “But I am
glad we won because we really wanted this one.”
Coach Martin called the Seattle tournament the biggest one of
the year for the team who will compete from Thursday until
Sunday.
“This is an opportunity to see some teams play that we
would only meet again at the NCAA,” Martin said.