UCLA men’s tennis enters individual competition with high expectations

A summer after the NCAA championship match that saw the Bruins come a foot fault shy of the title, UCLA men’s tennis starts its season by sending six members to Tulsa, Okla., to compete in the ITA All-American Championships, which start this weekend.

The competition will be the team’s first of the season, a season in which coach Billy Martin says anything but an improvement over last year’s performance would be inadequate.

“A good year isn’t going to be enough, we want to have the ultimate year,” he said. “I think we all anticipate, if we’re lucky and don’t have any injuries, that we really could be right there in it again.”

But before the Bruins start team play, they need to get through a season of individual competition, starting with the ITA championships. The competition will be centered around individual achievement and will be won by a single player, not an entire team like in spring competitions.

“You are playing for your school but really you’re playing for your own ranking in the fall,” said junior Marcos Giron. “The main thing is to build your ranking and hopefully get into individual NCAAs for the spring.”

Both Giron– who Martin said has a chance to win the whole competition – and freshman Mackenzie McDonald have already earned spots in the main draw and will compete from Oct. 3-6.

“(Giron is) playing as good of tennis as he’s ever played in his life right now – he’s not just doing well in some these lower pro events, he’s actually winning them,” Martin said. “If I had to pick one of my guys that I think looks like they’re playing the sharpest right now, it’d have to be him.”

For others on the team, like sophomore Karue Sell, the competition is more of a preseason test to identify unpolished areas of play before the spring.

“I didn’t set up a really big goal, I just want to go in and play my best. Hopefully I can see if I’m in shape and kind of evaluate myself for the beginning of the season to see what I need to improve on,” Sell said. “It’s kind of more of a practice for me to get a feel for the beginning of the year.”

Playing alongside Sell in the qualifying singles draw for a chance to earn a spot in the main draw will be freshman Gage Brymer, junior Dennis Mkrtchian and senior Clay Thompson.

And despite the potential for rusty play after the summer, Martin said he still expects all his athletes to play well.

“This is as strong a group as we’ve ever sent to Tulsa,” Martin said. “It wouldn’t surprise me that we could get all six of the Bruins into the main draw.”