Of the 17 dual matches on the UCLA men’s tennis team’s 2009 schedule, only one of them necessitates travel outside the state of California. On Sunday, the Bruins took to the courts in Waco, Texas to participate in one of the program’s fiercest rivalries. Once again, however, UCLA would return with another frustrating defeat.
No. 12 Baylor (5-3) defeated No. 6 UCLA (6-3) by a score of 4-3, a final tally that has become familiar to the squads. After trading victories over each other in the championship matches of the 2004 and 2005 NCAA Tournaments, the Bears and the Bruins have ground it out in each of the following seasons and come to the same one-point deficit conclusions each time.
“We’ve had some great matches between two really good programs,” UCLA coach Billy Martin said after his team’s loss, which gives Baylor the all-time series lead at 5-2. “I like the rivalry. It’s a good one and it helps prepare us for bigger, and better things, hopefully, down the line.”
After losing the doubles point for the fifth time in the last six matches, UCLA was down early. The Bruins, however, still managed to stay within reach as two-set victories trickled in from senior Michael Look and sophomore Nick Meister. The Bruins were playing without two of their usual starters, as sophomore Holden Seguso and senior Harel Srugo were both sidelined with lingering injuries. But it was not the substitutions that beat them in singles. Subbing in at the No. 6 spot was sophomore Ahmed Ismail, who nailed a 6-4, 6-4, win to bring the Bruin point total to three.
The other matches did not swing the Bruins’ way though, as UCLA senior Haythem Abid lost at the hands of the country’s No. 10-ranked singles player, Baylor’s Denes Lukacs. After sophomore Amit Inbar lost in a tiebreaker on the fifth court, the Bruins’ No. 2, junior Matt Brooklyn, lost the clincher in a comeback defeat, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.
Meister believes that there are still many positives to take from such a tough road trip.
“It’s matches like this that really prepare us for the NCAAs and get us used to the tough crowds like (at) ‘SC and Stanford,” he said.
The Bruins have now lost three matches in a row, albeit all of them coming to teams with national title hopes, but Martin thinks his squad put up quite a fight when the situation called for it, despite the disappointing result.
“I don’t want to make excuses, but (Baylor) is too good a team to think we’re going to step in and automatically beat them without some of our top guys,” he said. “We gave them a hell of a battle, and a hell of a scare, and I’m still pretty proud of the way the guys competed all the way down here in hostile territory.”