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Tobias Clemens beat Arizona’s Whi Kim 7-5, 6-3, and Arizona State’s Pim Van Mele 7-5,

UCLA men’s tennis beats the heat in Arizona

David Regan
Published: Monday, March 31, 2003

Though it’s been a while, they haven’t forgotten how to win.

After a two-week hiatus from competition, the No. 4 UCLA men’s tennis team returned to its winning ways over the weekend, downing Arizona 5-2 and Arizona State 6-1 to improve its record to 16-1, 3-0 Pac-10.

These wins came in the altitude, heat, and wind of the desert.

“Friday’s match was so doggone windy,” head coach Billy Martin said. “It’s always fairly tough for us.”

The wind-blown match against Arizona (5-7, 0-1 Pac-10) saw an uncharacteristic occurrence: UCLA lost the doubles point for only the second time all season.

“Doubles was horrible on Friday,” Martin said.

UCLA entered singles play trailing the Wildcats and the Bruins were forced to come up with some clutch individual performances.

Not only were they clutch, they were emphatic: five of the six Bruin players posted straight set victories.

No. 9 Tobias Clemens defeated Arizona’s Whi Kim 7-5, 6-3 at No. 1 singles.

No. 41 Marcin Matkowski beat Carl Hagman 6-3, 6-2 at No. 2. No. 40 Erfan Djahangiri won 6-3, 6-0 against Arizona’s Paul Warkentin at No. 3. There were similar results at No. 4 and No. 5 singles, as No. 93 Rodrigo Grilli posted a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Roger Matalonga and No. 44 Chris Lam defeated Colin O’Grady 6-3, 6-2.

The only anomaly in singles was Lassi Ketola’s performance at No. 6, as he was defeated 6-2, 6-1 by Arizona’s Daniel Andrus.

Ketola was likely rusty, since he spent finals week studying for his five tests rather than practicing.

“He’s working very hard in school,” Martin explained.

Saturday’s match with Arizona State (6-9, 2-1 Pac-10) was typical Bruin tennis.

“Saturday was much better than Friday,” Martin said. “We looked much better.”

UCLA won all three doubles matches and five of the six singles matches in straight sets. There was, however, one more anomaly. Djahangiri, previously 13-0 in dual match play, was upset at No. 3 by Chris Letcher, 6-4, 7-6(7).

“In his four years, that’s been the place he’s never played well,” Martin said. “He’s always struggled down there.”

In other action Saturday, Clemens beat Pim Van Mele 7-5, 6-2, Matkowski defeated Chris Stewart 7-5, 6-1, Grilli won 6-3, 7-6(4) against Olivier Charroin, Lam posted a 7-5, 6-3(3) victory over Ryan McBride and Alberto Francis stepped up at No. 6 to destroy Ryan Eveloff, 6-2, 6-1.

The Bruins will take the momentum of five straight victories to Northern California this coming weekend, as they square off against Cal on Friday and Stanford on Saturday.