Men’s tennis wins singles, doubles points for 5-0 victory over Tulsa

Just three days earlier, senior Dennis Mkrtchian had collapsed on the sideline of the second court with a high heart rate, feeling lightheaded as the trainers hovered over him in the middle of his match against Stanford. He said he didn’t know where he was at one point.

Tuesday was much different for the Bruin senior, as he won his singles match 6-3, 6-2 to clinch a 5-0 victory for No. 16 UCLA (8-5) over Tulsa (10-7), who upset former-No. 1 USC Friday.

As he ran towards the net Tuesday to celebrate the win, he didn’t look sick at all. Showing no signs of the grogginess he said he’d been feeling the past few days, Mkrtchian flexed his arms and cocked his head back to let out a primal scream.

Mkrtchian’s victory came at the same moment as that of junior Karue Sell. Mkrtchian knew his match would go unfinished if Sell clinched the dual match before Mkrtchian could close out his opponent. As it turns out, the two won at the same time, prompting Mkrtchian to unleash the scream.

“I’ve already had a lot of matches stopped while I was up so I really wanted this win,” Mkrtchian said. “Especially after Sunday, where I wasn’t feeling well … I definitely wanted this win and (Sell) was taking his time because he saw the score. I mean, if I was him at that point, I wouldn’t want to finish either. He was doing the right thing, I was just getting a little annoyed because I wanted to play.”

Earlier in the match, Mkrtchian and freshman doubles partner Austin Rapp helped UCLA win the doubles point with a 6-0 win at No. 3 doubles.

“Me and Rapp, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to close out matches and we just don’t,” Mkrtchian said. “When we played Stanford, we had set points, on my serve too, that we didn’t close out. I think it’s important to close out the matches because we’re in a lot of these dogfights and we’re not closing them out. We let them survive and stick around and it bites us.”

At No. 1 doubles, sophomore Mackenzie McDonald and freshman Martin Redlicki also notched a 6-0 victory to seal the doubles point.

“Winning both those matches 6-0, I haven’t seen that in a long time,” said coach Billy Martin. “But that gave us a lot of confidence that carried into singles.”

After taking the doubles point, the Bruins quickly jumped on the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes’ singles, with McDonald, Mkrtchian, Redlicki and Sell all taking straight-set victories. At No. 1 singles, McDonald, the nation’s No. 3 player, defeated No. 71 Or Ram-Harel, who beat the nation’s No. 6 player – USC’s Yannick Hanfmann – Saturday.

“I felt like the guy kind of played into my strengths and as long as I was executing the points well, I would win the point,” McDonald said. “He’s fast, which is really tough because he makes it to a lot of balls. But his ball’s pretty spinny and I felt like I was hitting off a lot of short balls today, which I like to do.”

Redlicki had a standout performance at No. 3 singles as well.

“I told him that was the best match I’d seen him play – not necessarily the level, but his concentration, his movement from start to finish,” Martin said. “He usually has sort of a roller-coaster ride – he plays a few really good games, gets up, knows he can hold his serve, then kind of waddles around, doesn’t really move his feet.”

But on Tuesday, Redlicki powered through to win 6-1, 6-3. On the fourth court, Sell also picked up an easy straight-set victory of 6-3, 6-2.

The Bruins, who will participate in the Pacific Coast Doubles Championship this weekend in La Jolla, face No. 6 USC Saturday. McDonald said he hopes they can repeat Tulsa’s success against the Trojans.

“It’s nice to know that we have an indirect win over ‘SC now,” McDonald said. “We’ll try to go get a direct win next week.”