Tiebreakers turn out in Bruins’ favor

  MARY HOLSCHER No. 1 singles Tobias
Clemensne’s Al Garland, the fifth ranked player in the
nation. UCLA 5 Pepperdine 2

By Gilbert Quiñonez
Daily Bruin Contributor

Six tiebreakers. Two on bordering courts at the same time. One
very exciting tennis match.

With the outcome of the match against No. 10 Pepperdine still in
doubt, UCLA’s Marcin Matkowski and Rodrigo Grilli were both
going to play two crucial second set tiebreakers at the same time.
Grilli quickly went in front of Calle Hansen 3-0. At the same time,
Matkowski stumbled to a 3-0 deficit against Stefan Suter. Matkowski
rebounded to go ahead 6-3 in the tiebreaker. Amazingly, Grilli lost
his lead and trailed 6-3.

“It was a complete reversal,” UCLA head coach Billy
Martin said. “Ridiculous.”

Matkowski quickly put away Suter to force a third set and avoid
losing his match. However, since Grilli had won the first set of
his match, a comeback in the tiebreaker would give him the match.
Grilli fought back to win the tiebreaker and the match, 6-4,
7-6.

“It’s a great feeling to win a tiebreaker,”
No. 1 starter Tobias Clemens said. “It shows a lot of
heart.”

Clemens would know. He had just won a tiebreaker in his match a
few minutes earlier. Clemens pulled off the biggest upset of the
day, beating the fifth best player in the country, Al Garland, 6-1,
7-6.

“You can’t let a top five player player play with
you, or else he’ll beat you,” Clemens said. “I
had to show right away that I’m better today. Then he starts
to get some doubt.”

After his tiebreaker win, Matkowski quickly won the third set
and the match, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3, ensuring a 5-2 victory by No. 5
UCLA.

“When I was losing 3-0, I tried to take it one point at a
time,” Matkowski said. “It was a very crucial moment.
If I were to lose one more point, it would have been very tough to
comeback later.”

Clemens’ quick first-set victory combined with Erfan
Djahangiri’s quick 6-1, 6-2 lashing of Johan Berg helped the
Bruins comeback from a disappointing doubles loss.

“They gave us the kick in the pants we needed,”
Martin said. “We played very poorly in doubles.

In the other singles matches, Jean-Julien Rojer needed to play
two tiebreakers to beat Sebastien Graeff, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3. Lassi
Ketola accounted for UCLA’s only singles loss when he lost to
Diego Acuna 7-6, 7-5.