National championship in sight for men’s tennis

Sophomore Marcos Giron was exhausted, with parts of the Illinois crowd roaring for and against him as he battled to keep his, and his team’s, season alive.

A win in his singles match, and the UCLA men’s tennis team was through to the national championship match. A loss, however, and the No. 1 seed Bruins would be knocked out of the tournament by the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Giron kept his cool. After dropping the first set, he battled back, ultimately taking a 5-4 lead in the third set with Ohio State serving to stay in the match.

Giron’s final point came by virtue of a double-fault serve by his opponent. With it, he clinched a 4-3 win for UCLA, as well as a spot in today’s national title game against No. 2 seed Virginia.

“It’s exciting, to say the least. A lot of times with these matches, that’s what it comes down to, a match here or there. You have to hope your team members keep their composure and not let the heat of the moment get to them too much,” said coach Billy Martin. “I think Marcos did a very good job, luckily better than his opponent. It was a situation where the other guy got a little bit nervous at the end. And that happens so often in the last match, third set, everybody is watching.”

As the competition began, it didn’t appear that the victory would come down to Giron. After winning the doubles point, the Bruins had the upper hand early, but the Buckeyes came back to take three singles matches, making Giron’s match the deciding point.

He had already left his mark earlier in the day, clinching the doubles point with a comfortable 8-4 win playing alongside sophomore Dennis Novikov.

Singles was a different story, however, as Giron grinded out a physical 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4 win in front of a tense crowd of both fans and teammates.

“I was just trying to stay really focused on my match and not focused on everything going on around me. The crowd is going crazy, and it’s easy to let that get into your head,” Giron said. “I didn’t want to think too much about the situation and how it was all on me, but it is tough to not let that get to the mind.”

The day’s other big performer was redshirt freshman Karue Sell, who gathered an 8-3 win in doubles with junior Adrien Puget and a straight-set win in singles. Sell also acknowledged the influence of his teammates on his performance, albeit in a different way.

When he noticed some of his teammates down in their matches, he said he realized he had to stay calm and use his mental toughness to claim an important singles point.

“When I looked at the scoreboard, I knew my (singles) match was going to be very important towards deciding the match. Fortunately I pulled that off in two sets, it was a very tough match, very physical, so that was pretty good,” Sell said. “It’s always tough looking at the scoreboard and seeing that we’re down in a lot of matches. I just kept my nerves and knew I needed to finish strong, which I did.”
UCLA is making its first appearance in the championship match since winning the NCAA title in 2005.

The Bruins, who are 29-1 on the season, will take on the No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers, who come in undefeated with a record of 29-0. After his exhausting win to keep the team’s championship hopes alive, Giron said it was fitting that the title comes down to the two best tennis teams in the country.

“I think this was kind of destined from the beginning of the tournament. Virginia is undefeated and we have one loss. This will be a fun match,” Giron said. “We’re all excited and pumped up for it. We’re glad to have made it this far but we’re not done just yet.”