UCLA men’s tennis remains hopeful for season’s end after losses to Cal, Stanford

The Bruins fell short against consecutive conference rivals.

UCLA men’s tennis (9-7, 1-3 Pac-12) dropped back-to-back matches over the weekend, losing to California (11-7, 3-2 Pac-12) on Friday and No. 24 Stanford (12-7, 3-2 Pac-12) on Saturday. The blue and gold fell by scores of 4-0 and 4-2, respectively, during its last road trip of the regular season.

The rough couple of days for the Bruins marks the first time all season they have lost two matches in a row. Despite this, coach Billy Martin said he hopes the matches drive the team towards a strong season finish.

“We are not discouraged, but we know we need to keep working hard and trying to get some wins,” Martin said. “Especially getting back home after being on the road.”

UCLA secured victories in two of the three doubles matches against Stanford, while junior Timothy Li also picked up a win in singles play, taking the first set 7-5 and the second 6-4.

Li’s victory was the first of his collegiate career in dual-match competition. Li said his focus and mentality allowed him to be successful on the court.

“A lot of things went well, obviously towards the end I struggled a little to close it out, but I stayed focused,” Li said. “I improved my mental game a lot and felt physically ready for a long match.”

The contests against Cal and Stanford marked the last matches on the road for UCLA before the postseason. Li said the team is excited to return to home competition.

“It’s definitely big, playing at home with our fans is definitely a lot easier than traveling,” Li said. “These road trips are long and tough, so we are happy to finish the season at home.”

Despite two of the blue and gold’s three doubles matches against Cal needing a seventh game, the Bruins were unable to secure the first point of the match.

Martin said confidence will be key to the team having a strong finish to the season.

“We have got to keep trying to get better and get a little confidence. It’s a matter of really believing that we can beat some of these top teams,” Martin said. “We have to do a better job with our minds when we play some of these teams that are ranked higher.”

Junior Stefan Leustian kicked off his singles match against Stanford with a hot start, winning the first set 6-4 before dropping the second 1-6 and ultimately going unfinished. Leustian said this weekend shed light on some areas the team needs to improve in.

“We’ve got a lot to work on and a lot of room for improvement, but I was glad to see that we took our doubles loss at Berkeley and turned it around at Stanford,” Leustian said. “We played much better in doubles all around, and it was good to see that the energy was there.”

The next time UCLA takes the court will be at home against Washington at 2 p.m. on Friday.