The stands were as packed as they had been in quite some time
when the No. 8 UCLA men’s tennis team played host to the No.
4 Pepperdine Waves in the Bruins’ first home loss of the
season.
But as Friday afternoon began to wind down and the sun began to
set, several of the fans migrated to the patio that overlooks the
back courts of the Los Angeles Tennis Center to get closer to the
action.
The match’s outcome would rest in the hands of the players
battling on the final court.
Early on, the Bruins dropped what would prove to be a critical
doubles point after the No. 2 team of junior Chris Surapol and
freshman Haythem Abid were beaten 8-6 by the team of Pedro Rico and
Ivor Lovrak.
“I certainly felt we could’ve done a better job in
doubles,” coach Billy Martin said. “I thought we had a
chance there after they overcame that deficit and had break points
at 6-6 at No. 2.”
Rico carried the momentum from his doubles win into singles
where he quickly defeated Abid 6-2, 6-2 to give the Waves a 2-0
lead.
The Pepperdine lead grew once again as Richard Johnson beat
sophomore Jeremy Drean 6-3, 7-5.
Facing the biggest deficit possible in college tennis, the
Bruins’ chances began to look slim.
But when it mattered most, freshman Michael Look gave his team
some hope ““ he tallied UCLA’s first score by defeating
Omar Altmann 7-5, 7-6.
“It was my first big match and I started to get fired up
before I got on the court,” Look said. “Even when I was
warming up while doubles was still going on, I was
excited.”
Just a little while later, junior Benjamin Kohlloeffel defeated
Scott Doerner 7-6, 6-1, narrowing the Bruin deficit to 3-2.
All focus quickly shifted to the third and fourth courts as
Surapol and sophomore Mathieu Dehaine played the matches that would
determine the overall winner.
Surapol won the first set, but lost the second to Andre Begemann
in a tiebreaker.
“At 5-5 in the second set, he got a really bad call
against him which could have turned the match around,”
assistant coach Jason Sher said. “But he stayed positive and
stayed in the match.”
That was not the only bad call that Surapol had to fight past:
Begemann called a ball that appeared to have clipped the line out
in the third set with the score at 3-3.
Fired up, Surapol captured the next point. Then, he dropped just
two points in the next three games, winning 6-4, 6-7, 6-3.
“Once I get pumped up, I feel like I can beat anyone in
this world,” Surapol said.
The crowd immediately turned to the third court to watch the
deciding match. Dehaine was pitted against Lovrak in yet another
three-set match.
Though he had chances to break Lovrak’s serve and serve
for the match at 4-3, Dehaine was unable to convert on any of
them.
The match went to a tiebreaker in the third set where Lovrak
took control and held the Bruin to just one point, winning 4-6,
7-5, 7-6.
“Sometimes when you see that score 3-0, it’s easy to
think pessimistically,” Martin said. “But we hung in
there and chipped our way back.”
The loss ended the Bruins’ 28-match home winning streak,
which dates back to March 10, 2004. Their record dropped to 4-2
while Pepperdine improved to 10-0 on the year.
“It was about as exciting as a college tennis match as it
can get,” Martin said. “You certainly never like
losing, but if there’s ever such a thing as a good loss,
that’s probably as good a loss as you can have.”