CLAIRE ZUGMEYER Junior Jean-Julien Rojer
competes against USC.
By Gilbert Quiñonez
Daily Bruin Contributor
The loud USC fans in attendance were quickly quieted down Friday
when the No. 3 UCLA men’s tennis team overpowered the No. 12
Trojans, 7-0. The Bruins quickly shot down every opportunity the
Trojans had at getting back into the game, or even scoring a
point.
The Bruins started the match by sweeping the three doubles
matches. In the most dominating doubles match, Tobias Clemens and
Lassi Ketola beat Damien Spizzo and Daniel Langre 8-2.
“Lassi and I were on fire,” said
Clemens. “We were serving well, and had really good
command.”
In the only close doubles set, USC’s Prakrash Amritraj and
Andrew Park came back from a 4-1 deficit to tie Erfan Djahangiri
and Rodrigo Grilli at 5-5, only to lose the set 9-7.
“When they were up 4-1, they lost a little
concentration,” said Bruins head coach Billy
Martin. “They haven’t been playing very much
together, but pulled it together.”
In the other doubles set, the No. 1 doubles team in the country,
UCLA’s Marcin Matkowski and Jean-Julien Rojer, beat Ryan
Moore and Nick Rainey 8-5.
In singles, UCLA continued the slaughter by winning all six
matches, winning most of the sets easily. Clemens, starting at the
No. 1 position for the first time this season, beat Park 6-3,
6-1.
“I definitely tried to match up Clemens with Park,”
said Martin. “He had great success against him twice in the
preseason.”
“I can play his game very well,” said Clemens.
“I hit a lot of winners, and was very solid.”
In what proved to be one of the more exciting singles matches,
Ketola beat Langre 7-5, 6-3. Up 6-5 in the first set, Ketola had a
break point opportunity to win the set. After a brief rally, Ketola
was forced to hit a desperation lob over Langre’s head. The
shot landed right in front of the line, helping Ketola win the
point, the set, and the match.
“We were both serving very well, and couldn’t break
each other,” Ketola said. “I didn’t come in
enough, and I had to take a few risks.”
Matkowski accounted for the set lost by the Bruins, but
rebounded to win his match against Rainey 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.
In the other singles matches, Djahangiri beat Ruben Torres 6-4,
6-2, Rojer beat Amritraj 6-2, 6-2, and Grilli beat Moore 6-1,
6-2.
“This was a good confidence builder for us,” said
Martin. “We beat a very good team.”