Thursday, 5/15/97 Bruins hope home-court will be advantageous
CHAMPIONSHIP: ’65 team dominated in last tennis tourney hosted by
UCLA
By Zach Seal Daily Bruin Contributor In sports, home-field
advantage during the postseason is usually reserved for teams that
outperform their competition during the regular season. It follows
then, that Georgia’s NCAA tennis programs consistently thrash their
regular season opponents. Over the past 20 years, Athens, Georgia
has hosted 18 NCAA Championships. But during the same span,
California’s tennis teams have dominated the sport. In fact, UCLA
and USC are the only schools in the country that have made the
tournament cut each of the last 19 years. Nonetheless, NCAA
officials, ignoring cries for a level playing field during the
championships, kept the tournament in Georgia for money reasons.
Only once did attendance at the Athens site dip below 10,000.
Intense lobbying by tennis coaches across the nation has manifested
in a rotating home-court advantage system over the past few years.
UCLA is one of the first benefactors of the new structure. For the
first time in over 30 years, UCLA will host the tournament. The
last time UCLA was the host team, in 1965, the Bruins’ four-man
team, led by head coach J.D. Morgan – who won seven national titles
in his tenure from 1951-66 and is the namesake of the UCLA athletic
department building – overpowered the competition by clinching the
championship halfway through the tournament. Back then, the
tournament championships were decided by points , much like track
and field is now. When an individual or doubles team won a match,
not only did they advance to the next round, but they also earned
points for the school they were representing. However, the
structure has since changed. Today, each team is composed of six
individual players and three doubles teams. Each player and team is
ranked from top-to-bottom and battles the corresponding ranked
player of the opposition. Whichever school wins the most matches
advances to the next round in the 16-team tournament. Under the old
system, UCLA dominated the 1965 tourney. And it had everything to
do with Arthur Ashe. Just after representing the United States in
Davis Cup action, Ashe took the court at the UCLA Tennis Stadium
(the Los Angeles Tennis Center wasn’t built until 1984) as the
country’s third-seeded player. He didn’t waste the home-court
advantage, as he demolished Miami’s Mike Belkin, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 to
capture the singles title. He then paired with UCLA’s Ian
Crookenden to defeat teammates Dave Reed and Dave Sanderlin in the
doubles final. In the end, UCLA’s quartet combined for a then
record 31 of a possible 34 points. "Honestly, I can’t draw any
parallels between this year’s team and the ’65 team," UCLA head
coach Billy Martin said. " You have to give this year’s players
more time. Ashe and those guys were unbelievable tennis players.
But all four of them became class acts later in life as well." This
time around, UCLA is favored to win the championship again. And
history is on the Bruins side — sort of. No team has won more
national titles than UCLA’s 15, however, the Bruins have not been
able to bring home the crown since 1984. UCLA Sports Info The 1965
NCAA Championship team (from l. to r.), Ian Crookenden, Dave
Sanderlin, Coach J.D. Morgan, Dave Reed and Arthur Ashe. UCLA
Sports Info Arthur Ashe won the NCAA singles championship in
1965.