By Gilbert Quiñonez
Daily Bruin Contributor
Several UCLA men’s tennis players are ecstatic about going
to Vegas this weekend. However, the reasons don’t include
gambling, nightlife or the strip.
“I’m pretty excited about going to Las Vegas,”
junior Rodrigo Grilli said. “It will be my first NCAA
tournament.”
Four players from UCLA will be going to Las Vegas for the
National Collegiate Tennis Classic, while six players will be going
to Thousand Oaks for the Sherwood Tournament. In each of these
tournaments, a doubles and singles competition will be held.
Although the tournaments don’t count for the team
standings, all of these players can move up in the Intercollegiate
Tennis Association rankings with strong showings. Also, UCLA
men’s tennis head coach Billy Martin said that these
tournaments will help him to formulate a starting lineup for the
coming season.
Martin also hopes that his current No. 1 starter, Jean-Julien
Rojer, will rebound from a disappointing loss to UC Santa
Barbara’s Carlos Palencia on Wednesday. No. 3 UCLA easily
beat UCSB 6-1, and Rojer accounted for the team’s only loss.
Rojer, along with Marcin Matkowski, Grilli and Derrick Nguyen will
go to Las Vegas. Rojer and Matkowski form the preseason No.
1-ranked doubles team in the country.
Competing at the tournament in Las Vegas will be players from
some of the best teams in the country, including No. 1 Georgia, No.
2 Stanford, No. 4 Tennessee and No. 10 Duke.
Lassi Ketola, Tobias Clemens, Erfan Djahangiri, Alberto Francis,
Ryan McNaughton and Nick Kreiss are the Bruins who will play at the
Sherwood Tournament. The tournament features some of the best
players from several California schools: USC, Cal, Pepperdine and
San Diego State.
“I should play more aggressive,” UCLA’s Lassi
Ketola said.
Even though he beat UCSB’s Mario Pepe convincingly (6-2,
6-1), it took him almost as long to win as those matches that went
to three sets.