Redshirt senior Nick Meister and the men’s tennis team will take on No. 4 Cal, No. 5 Washington or No. 8 Arizona on Friday at Ojai’s Libbey Park.
Following a dramatic victory against USC to finish the regular season, the UCLA men’s tennis team is looking forward to carrying its momentum into the Pac-12 Championships this weekend.
The Bruins won their last 10 matches to finish the season at 21-2 overall and 7-0 in Pac-12 Conference play to lock up the No. 1 seed in the tournament, which automatically puts them in the semifinals.
“Every day at practice, we just come out and keep practicing harder and harder and believing psychologically we beat the No. 1 team in the country and thinking that we can really go all the way and keep doing it,” redshirt junior Alex Brigham said.
After defeating USC, the team’s confidence is at an all-time high.
“Since we beat the No. 1 team in the country, we feel very confident right now,” Brigham said. “We feel like we can take on any team in the country and we have a really, really good shot of going all the way and winning the whole thing.”
The Bruins believe the key to winning the Pac-12 Championships is to play with the same mentality that they had against the Trojans last week.
“Just really believing in ourselves again … playing strong, staying focused just like we were on Friday,” redshirt senior Nick Meister said.
The Bruins realize they will most likely have a rematch with the Trojans in Ojai this weekend, and they are prepared to do battle once more.
“(My players) know they’re going to have to play ‘SC again, and they’re going to be pissed off, and they’re going to be fired up to beat us, and that should be motivation enough,” coach Billy Martin said. “We’ve got a really good, competitive group of guys, and they’re hungry and they want to try to succeed. We have high goals, so we are trying to attain those, and that goes for doing well at Ojai.”
However, Martin does not want his team to overlook a team such as Cal, which will also be looking for revenge against UCLA.
“I don’t want to dismiss Cal. You know they’re going to be fired up. They did not play a good match against us here at our place a couple weekends ago,” Martin said. “We can’t just assume we’re going to play ‘SC; we’ve got to beat Cal, (which is) a really good team. And if we are fortunate enough to do that, then we might have the chance to play ‘SC again and have a really tough battle.”