Bruins turn focus to NCAA men’s tennis singles, doubles
After starting the season unranked, Mackie McDonald will enter the NCAA singles tournament as the No. 6 seed. (Kathy Chen/Daily Bruin)
By Hanson Wang
May 25, 2016 12:32 a.m.
TULSA, Okla. –– UCLA is out of contention for a men’s tennis team championship, but it can still pick up individual titles in both singles and doubles.
The Bruins’ hopes will fall on the shoulders of two players.
UCLA’s best chance rests with junior Mackie McDonald, who will make his third appearance in the NCAA Division I singles championship. McDonald reached the quarterfinals when he was unseeded in his freshman year, but was upset in the first round the following year when he was the No. 3 seed.
McDonald played all his matches at the Bruins’ No. 1 singles spot, but he started this season slowly thanks to a stress fracture of his wrist that hampered his play. Once March rolled around, however, he was firmly ranked in the top 10 for singles. The junior finished his campaign 16-1 – 13 of those wins and the sole loss were against nationally ranked players.
As the No. 6 overall seed, McDonald will face Kentucky freshman Ryotaro Matsumura, who finished the regular season ranked No. 42 by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, in the first round of the men’s singles championship. Matsumura competed mostly at the No. 2 spot for the Wildcats, compiling an 18-7 dual match record. His best wins this season have come against then-No. 34 Wayne Montgomery of Georgia and then-No. 47 Sam Shropshire of Northwestern.
Sophomore Martin Redlicki will be making his first appearance in the NCAA singles tournament. UCLA’s No. 2 singles player will face No. 50 Purdue redshirt sophomore Gergely Madarasz.
Redlicki finished the season with 29 singles victories, going 9-4 against ranked opponents. Madarasz finished 20-3 this season, with his best win against Northwestern’s then-No. 13 Konrad Zieba.
The selection committee named No. 58 Gage Brymer as the third alternate on May 5 and he is now in the first position after two players dropped out of the competition. He has 20 singles wins this season, and if he makes it to the draw, it will be the first time since 2014 that UCLA sends three players to the singles championship.
In the NCAA doubles tournament, McDonald and Redlicki will be the lone Bruin duo to compete. The No. 2-seeded team will be countered by Virginia’s Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger. Last year, the UCLA pair lost in the first round to LSU’s Boris Arias and Jordan Daigle. The format for the tournament will be the best of three six-game sets, instead of the one six-game set teams play in dual matches.
The Bruins’ most recent singles championship winner is Marcos Giron, the current volunteer assistant coach, who won in 2014. The last doubles title for UCLA came in 1996.
