Men’s tennis has tough work ahead as it faces UC Irvine
UCLA vs BYU Mens Double Tennis Pro-Set And Singles Matches
By Daily Bruin Staff
Jan. 24, 2012 12:42 a.m.
After a win last week against BYU, the UCLA men’s tennis team is looking to make improvements in several key areas for its match against UC Irvine on Tuesday afternoon.
“Hopefully we can see some improvement,” coach Billy Martin said. “I’m not happy with our serve percentage (or) second-serve placement. Those are areas we’ve got to improve on.”
“I think that’s maybe our weakest point right now ““ all the way up and down the line on our team.”
The players knew exactly what they had to work on as soon as their matches against BYU were over, and they saw the same errors that their coach saw.
Freshman Dennis Mkrtchian said he needs to “(have) a higher first-serve percentage, make sure I convert on the break points and just keep working hard.”
Another player who echoed the same sentiments was fellow freshman Marcos Giron. He said he needed to work on his serve and have a higher first-serve percentage as well.
In addition, he wants to make sure that he closes games and doesn’t let opponents back into the match.
“I feel like tennis-wise I’m playing pretty well. It’s just mental now,” Giron said. “I just want to make sure I don’t give any more opportunities to my opponents when I’m up.”
Martin is not sure if the same six players who played against BYU will play against UC Irvine, as he wants to give other guys a chance to play in some matches.
“We are going to be mixing it up, not because guys are playing better than others, but just I want everybody to be able to have some experience in case we need those other guys,” Martin said.
This will be the first time the Bruins will see many of UC Irvine’s players since several of them graduated at the end of last year.
“They lost like three or four (seniors) so it is going to be really tough for us,” sophomore Clay Thompson said. “I haven’t seen many of their players play. I really only know their No. 1 at this point, who is a very good player, and Nick (Meister) is going to have a good time with him.”
Meister, who is a redshirt senior, is prepared for the challenge that awaits him on Tuesday.
“Their No. 1 player is really talented from the baseline,” Meister said. “(He) likes to move side to side, so I need to make him (have) more front and back movement. (I need to) hit high and heavy, so that it’s not in his strike zone every time.”
Martin emphasized that even though his players feel they can beat UC Irvine, they are going to be hurt in the long run if they don’t take this opportunity to work on their serve.
“We can get by and maybe beat an Irvine, even if we don’t do a little bit better job,” Martin said. “But if we are going to get by the National Indoor Qualifying (Tournament) to get to go back to Virginia ““ if we want to beat an SC, a Stanford, a Cal this year ““ we’ve got to do a much better job on our serve.”
If there is one advantage that the players feel they have over UC Irvine, it is experience.
“The rest of the team is very young and inexperienced, so we just got to come out and show them what college tennis is all about and put the pressure on a young team,” Thompson said.
With their improvements in mind, the Bruins will look to move to 2-0 on Tuesday as they work out their kinks at the start of the season.
