The Bruins were on the brink of notching their longest winning streak in four years.
And they conceded just one point en route to the milestone.
No. 25 UCLA men’s tennis (5-2) notched its fifth consecutive win of the season against UNLV (5-4) on Sunday afternoon. The last time the team accomplished the feat was during its final five matches of the 2019-2020 season, before COVID-19 cut its season short.
The match commenced with a doubles round featuring new doubles pairings. Anton Ornberg and Jackson Atherton defeated redshirt junior Timothy Li and junior Giacomo Revelli to give UNLV an early lead. Meanwhile, redshirt senior Govind Nanda and redshirt junior Jeffrey Fradkin secured UCLA’s first doubles win against Taiyo Hirano and Illia Maksymchuk to even the doubles slate at one apiece.
“We have a great connection in doubles,” Li said. “This year, we haven’t had as strong of a start as we did last year, but we’re still trying to find our groove, trying to be a little more focused in practice and work on everything.”
Freshman Spencer Johnson and senior Jorge Plans Gonzalez bagged the Bruins’ first point of the match with their doubles win against Aaron Bailey and Joseph Chen. Plans Gonzalez and Johnson were teamed up in the doubles format for the first time and battled out a tiebreak to finish 7-6(2).
Plans Gonzalez said the duo’s linguistic background allows them to connect further.
”It was great. We have really good chemistry,” Plans Gonzalez said. “It was actually the first time we played together, I never practiced with him before. The fact that he also speaks Spanish and I speak English – we can communicate easily.”
The Bruins didn’t miss a beat in singles contention.
Nanda broke a 3-0 deficit to clinch the first set 7-5 on court one. Revelli and Johnson achieved identical scoreboards as they swept their opponents 6-3, 6-3. Fradkin couldn’t overcome Martin Jovenin, allowing the Rebels their only tally of the day.
Plans Gonzalez emerged the sole Bruin to drop a set in the contest but still achieve a win. Bailey bounced back from a loss in the opening stanza with a narrow victory in the second frame.
A tie-break between Plans Gonzalez and Bailey dictated the final point of the match. UCLA’s senior won his singles match, 6-3, 7-6(8), 1-0(5) culminating in a 6-1 victory for the Bruins.
Coach Billy Martin is focused on maintaining the team’s performance after it entered the national collegiate rankings for the first time this season on Friday.
“From a coaching standpoint, you don’t want our level to drop too much. We’re working hard trying to improve on things,” Martin said. “We have an incredibly tough schedule coming up very soon.”
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