This post was updated May 11 at 10:14 p.m.

Decade after decade, the Bruins thrived.

Sixteen NCAA titles, 43 conference championships and 62 top-five finishes.

But that time is over. A dark age has descended upon them.

UCLA men’s tennis’ 2023 dual-match season came to a screeching halt with a loss to Northwestern on Friday in the first round of the NCAA tournament. It marked the Bruins’ third straight season with a winless outcome on the national stage, something never done before in program history – unequivocally the team’s worst stretch of all time.

Making its return to the tournament after missing out for the first time ever, UCLA took a small step forward this season. But when all was said and done, it also managed to take another step backward.

Not once in the 46 years of the modern tournament format had the Bruins failed to reach the second round in three consecutive seasons. Even two straight shortcomings were unheard of.

Now the Bruins have done just that.

Explaining the latest results in a line of lost seasons is a tricky business. Aside from UCLA’s decorated history, its downfall makes little sense considering the sheer talent that has flocked to Westwood in recent years.

Since 2020, six blue-chip recruits have committed to UCLA compared to the four such commitments it received from 2016 to 2019, with the class of 2022 featuring three alone.

Coach Billy Martin has historically been a master facilitator of the rotating door, allowing his top players to go pro whenever they desire while still possessing enough depth to be a title contender year in and year out. His legendary track record earned him plenty of slack for disappointing seasons in 2021 and 2022, but 2023 has started to raise some questions.

Freshmen Aadarsh Tripathi, Azuma Visaya and Gianluca Ballotta regularly composed half of the singles lineup this season, and at times, they flashed their talent. 4-3 wins over Pepperdine and Arizona State – both clinched by Visaya – thrust UCLA back into the NCAA tournament, and Ballotta’s 9-3 record earned him the team’s top dual-singles winning percentage.

As a whole, though, the trio played to their newcomer billing.

They completed dual-match play just 22-19 in singles and an even worse 12-17 in doubles. Their inexperience was all too apparent in the end, where near-wins against Utah and Northwestern highlighted UCLA’s disastrous four-match losing streak to close 2023.

The Bruins’ other three blue-chips since the turn of the decade were nonfactors this season. Spencer Johnson has been unavailable since departing on a two-year Latter-day Saints mission back in 2021, sophomore Stefan Leustian appeared in just nine singles matches and Karl Lee transferred to USC in the offseason.

Make no mistake, Martin deserves credit for dipping into the international pool to find gems in Ballotta and sophomore Alexander Hoogmartens. The results just haven’t been there when it comes to refining homegrown talent in the post-pandemic era.

UCLA’s recent fate does make some sense considering who it has been forced to play without. You’d be hard-pressed to find a team more cursed with the injury bug in the past three years.

In 2021, it was a freak skateboarding accident that sidelined the Bruins’ top singles option in then-senior Keegan Smith immediately before the postseason.

In 2022, then-junior and No. 1 singles player Drew Baird suffered a hip injury in March, requiring two hip labrum surgeries that effectively ended his Bruin career.

And this season, it was an undisclosed season-ending injury to sophomore No. 1 singles player Hoogmartens in February.

Just as they were forced to do in the years prior, the Bruins turned to youth to deliver in 2023. It didn’t, just like in 2022 and 2021.

This team lacked the tested toughness needed to turn the page on past struggles. With five of six singles starters returning next season and Hoogmartens set to run the show at full health, it would appear a safe assumption that another step backward is not in the cards for 2024.

But this season, as well as those that preceded it, offers little evidence for that theory.

The program may very well remain where it is – in darkness.