By Dave Denicke
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
ATHENS, Ga. ““ The UCLA men’s tennis team hopes to
rebound from a disappointing team result to post a strong
individual showing, starting today.
The second-seeded Bruins fell Tuesday to Tennessee in the
national quarterfinals, again falling short of winning a first
national title for head coach Billy Martin. The Bruins lost to
Georgia 4-3 in last year’s final as the tournament’s
top-seeded team.
Junior Jean-Noel Grinda and senior Jong-Min Lee are the only two
Bruins still competing at the Dan McGill Tennis Complex in Athens,
Ga. For both players, the task of shaking off the team’s loss
will be difficult.
“I’m still recovering from the team loss,”
said Lee, whose doubles partner Brandon Kramer was unable to
compete at the NCAAs due to a fractured wrist.
For Grinda, the main challenge will be to forget a tough
second-round loss in the singles draw in Athens a year ago.
“It’s not like last year,” he said. “I
was tired physically and mentally. I’m going to give it my
best.”
Last year Grinda had to play for four straight days during the
team competition before the individual tournament.
Martin acknowledged how demanding the tournament is on the
individual players, encompassing almost a full week of action.
“It’s a physical, physical tournament,” Martin
said.
“If you get through to the final rounds of the team part,
you’re pretty drained.”
This year, however, both Grinda and Lee have had two days to
recover, while several top seeds ““ including Stanford’s
Alex Kim and Geoff Abrams ““ have had to slug it out in the
team finals.
The team finals featured three of the singles tournament’s
top six seeds, including Kim, Abrams and K.J. Hippensteel.
“The guys that have to play four days straight are at a
disadvantage,” Lee said. “But I have to win some
matches first before I think I have an advantage.”
Both of last year’s finalists, Florida’s Jeff
Morrison and Harvard’s Jeff Blake, had two days off before
the singles draw.
Today, Lee will face Mike Halperin of Cornell at 10 a.m. EST,
while Grinda will square off against Alabama-Birmingham’s
Martin Woisetschlager at 10:30 a.m.