By Greg Schain
Daily Bruin Contributor
February 19, 1999 is a day that lives in infamy in the hearts
and minds of all Washington Husky tennis fans.
That afternoon was the second round of one of the most important
college tennis tournaments of the year, the National Indoor
Championships played at the University of Washington.
UCLA was matched up against the host team. The best-of-seven
match was a dogfight from the beginning. Eventually, the score was
tied at three with one match still going.
That match pitted Washington’s Marius Lunde against
UCLA’s Jason Cook. Cook had dropped the first set 6-0, but
had rebounded to take the second set 7-6, winning the tiebreaker by
a razor-thin 7-5 margin.
So it came to the final set of this match to decide which team
would advance in the tournament. Cook lost an early break in the
set and found himself quickly in a precarious hole.
But he fought back, and in front of a frenzied crowd was able to
save seven match points for Lunde before winning a third set
tiebreaker, 9-7.
UCLA eventually went on to win the tournament and Washington was
left to wallow in its misery.
Cook has since graduated, but Lunde is still with Washington and
remembers that day all too clearly.
“I’m looking to get revenge,” Lunde said.
“But I have no more anger against UCLA.”
Today, he will get a chance to avenge that heartbreaking loss
when Washington visits the Los Angeles Tennis Center to take on
UCLA at 1:30 this afternoon.
But No. 13 Washington (17-5; 2-2 Pac-10) will have more than
revenge on its mind. Right now, the Huskies are on the cusp of
earning the right to host a regional tournament, and they need
every win they can get in order to secure the advantage.
“This is a huge match and a good opportunity to earn home
court (advantage),” Lunde said. “We can’t wait to
get out on the courts and play.”
UCLA has already secured the right to host a regional
tournament, which will take place May 12-13 at the L.A. Tennis
Center.
But this match is still important for the Bruins because the
team needs to fine tune its game before traveling to the Bay Area
for a re-match against Stanford next weekend. All of the
Bruins’ top three players have been either out or struggling
for the past two weeks.
Sophomore Jean-Julien Rojer, the regular No. 1 singles player
for UCLA, just returned this week from Uruguay, where he was
playing in the Davis Cup. He is suffering from a minor rotator cuff
injury and is questionable for today’s match.
“It hurts whenever I have to raise my shoulder above my
head, like when I am serving,” Rojer said.
Senior Jean-Noel Grinda also needs to rebound from losses to
both Stanford and Cal last weekend. But UCLA Head Coach Billy
Martin is not worried too much about Grinda.
“In practice this week, (Grinda) was hitting as well as he
has in the past two months,” Martin said.
A third question mark for the Bruins is freshman Tobias Clemens,
who returned this week after being out for over a month due to a
foot injury. He lost to College of the Desert on Wednesday in a
third set tiebreaker, but that match was only an exhibition.
“He should be fine,” Martin said.
In addition to Washington, the Bruins will host Oregon at noon
on Saturday at the LATC in what will be their final dual home match
of the year. But the Bruins won’t be thinking about that when
they take to the court this weekend.
“There is no added emotion because of that,” Rojer
said. “We just go about our business and try to get two
wins.”