By Rekha Rao
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA men’s tennis team brought its record to 3-0 this
weekend when it defeated Arizona 6-1 on Friday and finished the
postponed Arizona State match on Sunday, 4-3.
On Friday, the third-ranked Bruins beat the No. 60 Wildcats at
LaNelle Robson Tennis Center in Tucson in their first dual Pac-10
match of the season.
“The match went really well. We came off really strong in
doubles. This was good for us because we have been struggling with
our doubles lately,” said senior Jean-Noel Grinda.
The Bruins started off strong with a sweep in the first three
doubles matches, securing the single doubles point for UCLA.
“This was probably the best doubles that we have seen
since we started out team matches,” said head coach Billy
Martin. “We are starting to play better together and starting
to gain cohesiveness as a team.”
The 45th-ranked doubles team of Grinda and sophomore Jean-Julien
Rojer claimed its first Pac-10 victory, beating Arizona’s
Steven Capriati and Whi Kim 8-5.
In singles action, Arizona’s Kim gained the Wildcats
solitary point of the match when he defeated sophomore Erfan
Djanhangiri 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.
On Saturday, the Bruins were only able to play the doubles
matches before the entire match was delayed until Sunday because of
rain.
Even in that short time, UCLA pulled off the doubles point by
winning all three matches.
“We practiced doubles a lot this week, we really focused
on doubles and played much better,” said sophomore Lassi
Ketola.
The team of Rojer and Grinda topped the Sun Devils, beating
Arizona State’s Mitchell Bowen and Matt Klinger 8-5.
The other two Bruin doubles teams, freshman Marcin Matkowski and
sophomore Travis Rettenmaier, and Ketola and freshman Tobias
Clemens, won 8-4 and 8-5, respectively.
The break in the match because of the rain was difficult for the
Bruins to get over.
“We were close to closing out the match on Saturday and
had to wait a long time to wait for the courts to dry, so it was
difficult,” Grinda said.
The singles action on Sunday morning put the Bruins in a little
trouble. UCLA had an early lead and only needed one more point to
win the match.
Then the Bruins ran into a few problems. The Sun Devils won two
matches in the No. 1 and 2 positions when Rojer and Clemens were
defeated 6-3, 6-3 and 6-4, 1-6, 6-4, respectively. Grinda finally
secured the win for the Bruins, beating ASU’s Mirza
Duranovic, 6-1, 7-6 (7) in a tiebreaker.
“The guys were really counting on me for the win,”
Grinda said.
The Bruins were expecting a fight out of the Sun Devils.
“We knew they were a good team and that this was going to
be the tougher of the two matches,” Martin said. “But I
cannot say we struggled only because of the rain delay.”