M. tennis rolls over Boise State

M. tennis rolls over Boise State

Wins easy for top players Gimelstob, Muskatirovic, Taino

By Mark Shapiro

With three straight victories already under its belt, the UCLA
men’s tennis team figured to have little problem with Boise State
in yesterday afternoon’s match.

The Bruins figured right as the Broncos posed little threat to
No. 2 UCLA’s early season dominance in a 6-1 victory at the L.A.
Tennis Center.

"This was a pretty good team and they played hard," UCLA head
coach Billy Martin said. "They’re a feisty little team. I’m not
surprised that we won and we did it fairly convincingly."

Once again, the Bruins’ top three singles players faced weaker
opponents and quickly dispatched them, with a bit of trash talking
thrown into the mix. This banter was most prevalent in Justin
Gimelstob’s match at No. 1 singles against Albin Polyoni. The
normally jumpy Gimelstob came out lethargic in the first set and
overcame his sloppy play to win 6-3.

The second set was a different story as he began shouting after
points and disrupting his opponent, to the point where both players
traded barbs across the net.

"I was playing like I was dead, like I didn’t have a pulse,"
Gimelstob said. "I shouldn’t be like that and I should be more
intense than I’ve been. I feel like I’ve been down, no emotion. I
feel like I need to play with more emotion."

All the shouting aside, Gimelstob was able to roll, 6-0 in the
second set.

At No. 2, senior Srdjan Muskatirovic continued his strong play
in his 6-3, 7-5. victory. The win was especially important for
Muskatirovic because he was able to gut out a tough second set by
getting a late break and serving out the match.

"It feels good and it feels bad," Muskatirovic said. "It feels
good because I pulled it off, and it feels bad because I should
have played better. It helps mentally because you can’t play good
all the time. It gives you confidence that if you’re playing bad,
you can still win."

Junior Eric Taino has been dominant at the No. 3 position and
yesterday was no exception. He continued his torrid streak by
notching a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Erneso Diaz in under an hour.

"I don’t want to stay out there long because the longer I stay
out there, the more they have a chance to get into the match,"
Taino said. "I’m a lot better than these last two players and the
thing is to keep them down."

Matt Breen and Jason Thompson were both able to rebound from
recent losses by posting straight set victories to cap the
afternoon. The lone blemish on the day came at No. 5 where senior
Heath Montgomery continued to struggle in his 6-2, 6-3 loss to Ben
Davidson.Comments to [email protected]