Not only has the past week been one to forget for the UCLA men’s tennis team, the entire fall season up to this point has been a disappointment.
Not because of the Bruins’ play, but more because of their luck.
The No. 3 Bruins have seen several of their early season matches be either cancelled or postponed due to rain, and it does not look like the Bruins’ luck will be getting any better; their Saturday match against San Diego State looks like it will be rained out as well.
“Here we are and Saturday it looks like it going to rain again,” UCLA coach Billy Martin said Thursday, visibly perturbed. “We’re scurrying to try to get Saturday’s match played [today].”
UCLA’s lack of preparation showed over this past weekend at the ITA National Team Indoors tournament, where UCLA went 1-2, including a thrashing at the hands of No. 1 USC.
After opening the tournament with a 4-1 victory over No. 10 Kentucky, the Bruins suffered a 4-2 defeat to No. 4 Tennessee, before being blanked by the Trojans, losing 4-0.
“We still gave Tennessee a good fight … but we were just depressed, down, tired against ‘SC,” Martin said. “It was probably the worst competitiveness I’ve ever seen from a team that I coached against USC. But quite honestly I can’t be that upset about it because the deck was so stacked against us.”
“Really, it was sort of a bad trip,” Martin added. “It started off bad and ended off bad. We were really glad to get it over with. I don’t really think we had much of a chance, as tired as we were as the tournament went on.”
A large portion of UCLA’s fatigue came from difficulties in the team’s flight schedule. The Bruins were forced to catch a redeye Tuesday night because their original flight was delayed. According to Martin, although the team’s opening round match was not until Friday, the Bruins simply were not able to get adjusted and get in some valuable practice time before Friday.
“Our time-clocks were so screwed up,” Martin said. “We were match-shy too. We only played two matches going into that thing. Let’s just hope all of our bad luck went into that trip, and we can come back and get back on schedule.”
The Bruins match against SDSU is scheduled to take place at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.