The Cal men’s tennis team that played against UCLA in February was not the same team that battled the Bruins this past Friday. But the Bears ultimately finished with the same result, dropping both matches to a fourth-ranked UCLA team.
On Feb. 9, the Bears took on UCLA for the first time this year down at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. After losing senior co-captain Riki McLachlan to injury the day before, the Cal squad scrambled to switch around its doubles pairings to produce a completely different doubles lineup.
Without any practice together, the Cal duos yielded the doubles point to UCLA, giving the Bruins a 1-0 advantage. In singles, UCLA swiftly notched the next three points in two sets each to clinch a quick 6-1 victory over the Bears.
This past Friday at the Hellman Tennis Complex, No. 15 Cal once again dropped a match to No. 4 UCLA, 5-2.
However this time, the Bears (8-8, 0-1 in the Pac-12) fought to keep up with the Bruins (15-1,
1-0), pushing to notch points on the scoreboard during the almost four-hour long match.
Junior Ben McLachlan and sophomore Gregory Bayane pulled the Bears out of a 3-0 deficit in the singles round to keep Cal within 3-2 of UCLA, but the Bruins clinched a win on the last court to garner their 5-2 victory.
“We’re a better team than we were a month ago, and I’m encouraged by how we competed today,” Cal coach Peter Wright said.
In doubles, the Bears and the Bruins appeared to be evenly matched on all three courts.
Because neither team could break the other’s serve, the points went back-and-forth until the Cal pair of Bayane and junior Chase Melton fell to UCLA’s Dennis Mkrtchian and Alex Brigham, 8-4, on the third court.
Although the Bruins took the first win, the doubles point was still up in the air. The Bears led 6-5 on the top court, while the score was tied at 6-6 one court over.
However, after the Bruins pair of Marcos Giron and Dennis Novikov broke senior Christoffer Konigsfeldt’s serve on the top court, the Cal duo of Konigsfeldt and Campbell Johnson could not break back on match point.
The Bruins eventually clinched the doubles point, bringing a 1-0 advantage into the singles round.
In singles, UCLA garnered two more points right off the bat to push its lead to 3-0.
Bayane put the Bears on the scoreboard with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Mkrtchian on court four. McLachlan followed suit on the top court after clinching a close second-set tiebreaker over No. 14 Giron to bring the score to 3-2.
The Cal squad eventually lost to UCLA when Karue Sell defeated Melton in two sets on the sixth court. But the level of play was of an entirely different caliber from when the Bears first took on the Bruins last month.
After Cal’s narrow loss to UCLA, the squad was set to compete in its second Pac-12 conference match against No. 2 USC on Sunday, but the dual match was cancelled due to the rain.
“We had plenty of chances today, and there are definitely a couple of things we can do better,” Wright said. “UCLA is one of the teams that will be in the conversation for a national championship, and today we took some small steps toward our goal of being in that conversation.”
Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at jchua@dailycal.org.
The post Cal men’s tennis falls to UCLA, 5-2, in Los Angeles appeared first on The Daily Californian.