UCLA 7 Oxford 0
By Greg Schain
Daily Bruin Contributor
It first happened in 1776. Then again in 1812. And once again
Tuesday, when the British failed in their invasion of America, as
the UCLA men’s tennis team carpet-bombed Oxford 7-0 at the
Los Angeles Tennis Center.
The Bruins went with the top lineup available to them in
singles, but after seeing how bad Oxford was, UCLA Head Coach Billy
Martin replaced many of his regulars with second-string
players.
“It was a goodwill match, to be quite honest,”
Martin said. “It wasn’t a high-intensity
match.”
Because this was not an NCAA match, everyone played eight-game
pro-sets in singles instead of the normal two-out-of-three set
format.
Junior Derrick Nguyen and sophomore Zac Knysh both made their
dual-match debut for UCLA, playing at No. 5 and No. 6 singles,
respectively. Nguyen trounced Max Lang 8-0 and Knysh defeated
Julien Olszyna-Marzys 8-5.
Senior co-captain Chris Sands also got a chance to play
yesterday, beating Ivan Griffin 8-3 at No. 4 singles. Sands will be
forced to step in at No. 6 singles for UCLA this weekend when they
play Stanford and Cal, because both sophomore Jean-Julien Rojer and
freshman Tobias Clemens will be out. Rojer is in Uruguay playing in
the Davis Cup, and Clemens is still nursing an injured right
foot.
Martin thinks that Chris Sands will be ready for matches against
Stanford and Cal this weekend, despite not having seen that high
level of competition in a rather long time.
“I know Chris will be ready,” he said. “He
knows what it is all about.”
Winners at singles for the Bruins also included senior Jean-Noel
Grinda, sophomore Lassi Ketola, and freshman Marcin Matkowski.
Grinda handily defeated Nicoles Victoir 8-2, and Ketola crushed
Joerg Peltzer 8-0. Matkowski beat Venki Sundaram 8-1.
“This team was not the best (we’ve played),”
Matkowski said. “But in England they are good.”
If that is the case, then England’s collegiate tennis is
in a sad state. The team looked more like a bunch of weekend
warriors than serious collegiate players.