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Rodrigo Grilli playing against UNLV on Tuesday. Grilli and the Bruins will play USC today at 1:30 p.

Bruins, Trojans cross rackets today

David Regan
Published: Friday, January 31, 2003

The crosstown rivalry has seen 31 national team championships, hundreds of All-Americans, and 75 Grand Slam titles.

Through the years, men’s tennis players from UCLA and USC have likely contributed more to collegiate tennis than athletes from any other programs.

The two squads renew their rivalry today at USC at 1:30 p.m, but this time, the No. 1 Bruins (3-0) really have something to prove. No. 7 USC (3-1) is coming off a national championship season, while the Bruins are favored to win the championship this year.

“It’s always one of the highlights of the year,” Bruin head coach Billy Martin said of the match. “The fact that they won the championship last year makes this game even more important.”

It’s important because being the best means beating the best.

“’SC is always a great game,” senior Lassi Ketola said. “We want to beat them even more since they won the championship (last year).”

Not even a year has passed since USC secured the title. On the other hand, 19 years have passed since the Bruins last achieved that feat in 1984. But the way they have been going through opponents, it appears as if this UCLA team is hungry. It hasn’t surrendered a team point this season.

USC hasn’t achieved that same dominance. The team dropped its first match of the season Wednesday at No. 17 Pepperdine, 5-2.

Though it is a game between the two schools that have been meeting for decades, the teams’ faces have changed dramatically in recent years.

USC’s coach of 23 years, Dick Leach, retired after last season.

“I’m good friends with him,” Martin said. “We go way back together, and have faced each other for all 20 years I’ve been coaching. It will be different facing ’SC without him.”

Leach’s replacement is Peter Smith, who guided Pepperdine to five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances before accepting the USC head coaching position.

New faces have come to take over Bruin territory as well. This will be the first match against the Trojans for UCLA freshman Chris Surapol and sophomore transfer Chris Lam.

No. 12 Tobias Clemens has done this before, but he’s still excited.

“We always look forward to playing ’SC. It’s always a great game and they play us tough. We really want to win,” he said.