DANIEL WONG Sophomore Jean-Julien Rojer
returns the ball in a match against ASU last month.
By Greg Schain
Daily Bruin Contributor
Every dual match the UCLA men’s tennis team has played
this season was just a prelude to this weekend.
The No. 3 Bruins’ impressive 20-2 record has earned them
the right to host an NCAA Regional Tournament, one of 16 going on
around the country. No. 74 Cal State Sacramento (20-2), No. 30
South Carolina (12-12), and No. 35 University of South Florida
(16-7) will visit the Los Angeles Tennis Center to play in the
tournament.
UCLA will face Cal State Sacramento, the Big Sky Conference
champion, at 1 p.m. on Saturday in what is essentially the first
round of the NCAA tournament. But before the Bruins play, South
Carolina plays South Florida at 10 a.m. on Saturday, and the two
winners face off on Sunday at noon in the Regional final.
The winner of Regionals earns a bid to go to Athens, Georgia,
next weekend to play out the rest of the NCAA tournament, beginning
with the Round of 16 on May 19.
The Bruins are heavily favored to win Regionals, but Cal State
Sacramento has hopes of an upset in mind.
“We’ll be very competitive, and we are always
looking for an upset,” Cal State-Sacramento Head Coach Chris
Evers said. “Hopefully UCLA comes out a little
flat.”
But Cal State Sacramento’s hopes are dim, to say the
least. The Bruins have never lost a Regional tournament, dating all
the way back to 1950. And they definitely don’t plan on
starting now.
“We have more than a strong enough team to make it through
to Georgia,” UCLA Assistant Head Coach Jason Sher said.
“We’ll be ready to win.”
UCLA Head Coach Billy Martin shares Sher’s sentiments.
“If we are ready to play, and play good tennis, and
compete hard, we’ll be in good shape,” he said.
The tennis squad has been pumped up and ready to go for over a
week, practicing hard and yearning to get underway.
“We will drop bombs on them,” sophomore Jean-Julien
Rojer said during a practice last week.
But has UCLA peaked too soon? Will the excitement die down by
the time they take the court Saturday afternoon?
“No, we are totally peaking at the right time,”
senior Jean-Noel Grinda said. “Everyone is playing their best
right now, and everyone looks really sharp.”
Grinda’s comments express the optimism of the whole team.
For the first time since the beginning of the season, every player
is healthy and playing in top form.
In fact, the team is so confident they will win Regionals that
they have already booked travel reservations to go to Georgia next
weekend.
Is that a little too cocky and premature?
“No, because you can’t buy tickets the day before,
nobody does that,” Sher said. “Otherwise you’ll
be paying a lot of money.”