UCLA men’s tennis flew out to Northern California on Wednesday afternoon, allotting plenty of time to prepare both physically and mentally for its back-to-back dual meets against currently unranked Stanford and Cal.
“We’ll practice (Wednesday night) in Stanford, we’ll practice twice at Stanford (on Thursday) and then we’ll play Friday at 4 p.m.,” said assistant coach Grant Chen.
With little time to recover, the No. 15 Bruins will compete in Berkeley the next day at 3 p.m.
At the time of departure, the lineup for the weekend had not yet been decided. Chen said that the coaches would have to look at the potential player pairings from Stanford and Cal before assigning opponents.
“We have to look at matchups. We have to look at different scenarios,” Chen said.
Redshirt junior Ryoto Tachi will potentially play this weekend and had ideas for what he wanted to accomplish both on and off the court.
Tachi said that given his last match against Stanford, if he’s tapped to play on Friday, he would focus on getting a better start than last time. In the 5-2 win against Stanford, Tachi dropped the first set 2-6 but quickly came back 6-4 in the next and won six sets in a row to take the match.
“Even if I don’t (play), I just want to … help the team off the court,” he said.
Chen said that this weekend would be a particularly exciting one, considering the history of the three schools as some of the top men’s tennis teams in California. It’s the same prestige they share in the state that makes them rivals off the court when it comes to courting local recruits.
“Both (Stanford and Cal) are very good. Both are very dangerous,” Chen said.
Senior Dennis Mkrtchian said that UCLA has lost to both teams in the past, showing that they can’t be underestimated.
“(We have to) go out there and compete hard, knowing that anything less is not going to do it,” he said.
Chen added that this weekend on the road and against two of the top Pac-12 teams would show how the team does in an unfavorable environment.
“Seeing how your team reacts under hostile or unfamiliar conditions is something that’s part of the process,” he said. “The younger guys have played in tough conditions before, but playing in road conditions is always something you want to see how they respond to.”