Men’s tennis loses in semifinals
By Ajaybir Behniwal
May 19, 2008 9:33 p.m.
TULSA, Okla. “”mdash; The dream season finally came to an end.
The No. 3 UCLA men’s tennis team was finally grounded after a season that exceeded all expectations.
The Bruins (25-2) were ousted by seventh-seeded Texas in the semifinals on Monday evening by a 4-2 score.
“We’ve had a great season,” UCLA coach Billy Martin said. “I can’t say I thought we played badly. We fought really hard today and lost to a really good team.”
A controversial call on doubles court No. 2 decided the opening point of the match. UCLA’s Holden Seguso hit a crosscourt shot that appeared to land several inches within the sideline.
But the Longhorn duo of Luis Diaz Barriga and Miguel Reyes Varela called the shot wide.
Since the two were blocking the view of the chair umpire, he was unable to overrule their call, setting up a match point for the Texas twosome.
“We just got unlucky because the ref didn’t see that it was a few inches in,” Seguso said after the match. “We lost that and kind of got frustrated. Maybe if we had won that point, we would’ve gotten the momentum and gotten back into it.”
The call left the Bruins wondering what could’ve been.
After winning his first set, Harel Srugo lost his second set and his serve was broken early in the third set by the nation’s 10th-ranked player, Dimitar Kutrovsky. Srugo found himself in a hole that he was unable to dig himself out of.
At the same time, Seguso was keeping the Bruins’ hopes alive on court No. 2 with an impressive comeback.
Trailing 40-0 at 5-2 in the second set after already losing the first, Seguso changed his strategy to one that really wasn’t much of a strategy at all.
“Every time I’m tired and I can’t move ““ I was cramping a little bit ““ I just say, “˜I don’t care anymore,’ and I just go for winners, and it seemed to click for me,” Seguso said.
At one point, his opponent, Kellen Damico, was so frustrated by Seguso’s ability to slap aimlessly at the ball and put it back in play that he yelled, “I don’t fucking believe this. This guy’s just closing his eyes and swinging as hard as he can.”
Seguso was able to fight back and fight off several match points to win the second set and he got an early break on Damico’s serve in the third set, but it all came too late ““ the match was suspended once Srugo fell to Kutrovsky.
“They just looked a little stronger in the end in those third sets,” Martin said of the Longhorns’ ability to win all three of the three-set matches on the night. “(Kutrovsky) looked stronger and a little more physical than Harel in the end.”
The loss ended the careers of two Bruins.
Seniors Mathieu Dehaine and Jeremy Drean won their singles matches to set up the showdown on courts No. 1 and No. 2.
Drean fought off two set points to break back in the first set after already having a set point of his own at 5-4 before cruising to a 7-6(3), 6-2 win over Milan Mihailovic.
“I really wanted to do everything I could to help the team,” said a teary-eyed Drean after the match. “And even more so today because I didn’t play well against USC in the quarterfinals.”
Meanwhile, Dehaine battled from side-to-side behind the baseline to top Ed Corrie 6-4, 6-4.
For Dehaine, this year has been his most memorable ““ even more than his freshman year when his team won the national championship.
“At the end I was just crying,” he said. “It’s been the best year for me for sure.”
Even after the defeat, Martin and his players knew they had done far better than they had ever dreamed of at the beginning of the season, and they looked back on the season with pride.
“Everyone fought really hard, and we have nothing to regret,” Dehaine said. “We didn’t expect to go that far and do that well, but we proved everyone, including ourselves, that we are a great team.”
