M. tennis emerges from storm at Pac-10 Indoors
By Chris Isidro
The UCLA men’s tennis team, which seemed to hibernate through
its fall tournaments, showed some life at the Pac-10 Indoor
Championships in Seattle this weekend.
Although the No. 4 Bruins came home without any hardware, they
did get solid performances throughout the lineup.
"The guys weren’t real sharp from all the rain we’ve gotten,"
head coach Billy Martin said. "But the tournament scraped off the
rust real quick."
Senior Robert Janecek led UCLA’s resurgence, showing some of the
form which garnered him the No. 2 ranking in the preseason.
Unseeded in the top flight of the tourney, Janecek nearly bowed out
to Washington’s Mark Tomandl, hanging on 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
After that slap in the pants, Janecek, whose early season
struggles dropped his ranking to No. 22, kicked himself back into
gear. Displaying some of his competitive fire missing earlier in
the the year, Janecek edged No. 7 Jan Anderson of Arizona, 6-3,
7-6. The Toronto native then gave No. 2 Sargis Sargsian of Arizona
State a tight match before falling 7-6, 6-3 in the semifinals.
"Janecek beat two good players and played his best tennis so far
this year," Martin said. "He played Sargsian real tough and that’s
all I expect from him at this point."
In flight two, Eric Lin enjoyed a respectable showing, reaching
the quarterfinals before succumbing to Lukas Hovorka 6-1, 7-5.
Heath Montgomery won the consolation bracket, defeating Eddie
Schwartz 6-3, 7-5 in the final.
UCLA freshman Matthew Breen, entered in the third flight, romped
past first-round opponent Andrew Hughes of USC 6-2, 6-0 before
losing a heartbreaker to Cal’s Kian Raiszadeh, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6.
"He did a great job," Martin said of his latest addition. "It’s
all new to him and we just threw him into the college scene right
away after coming such a long way."