Spencer Johnson held the ball in his hand, the power of victory resting within his fingers.

The No. 57 junior bounced the ball once. Twice.

Finally, he raised his racket to hit the potentially match-clinching serve.

While the final score suggested a comfortable win, UCLA men’s tennis (9-3, 3-0 Big Ten) battled through multiple three-set singles matches in a more than three-hour affair to defeat crosstown rival No. 25 USC (10-4, 2-1) 4-1 at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on Friday evening. The match represented the squads’ second battle of the season after the Trojans earned a 4-3 win on Feb. 21.

“It doesn’t get much better than that,” said coach Billy Martin. “Both teams, they fight just that much harder when we play each other, and it makes winning that much sweeter – and it makes losing hurt that much more.”

[Related: UCLA men’s tennis loses rivalry, tiebreaker game against USC]

Johnson clinched the match with his final serve, delivering a service-winner against Branko Djuric on court one that elicited a standing ovation from the Westwood crowd as his teammates mobbed him on the court.

But the victory was far from easily attained.

Djuric won the first set 6-4, but Johnson came back to take the second 6-2 and to force a third set.

The tension was palpable, heightened by repeated exchanges with the umpire. Both Johnson and Djuric approached the chair to contest points throughout the third set as teammates watched from the sidelines.

And while Djuric held a 6-5 lead, Johnson surged with a combination of service winners and aces to force a third-set tiebreaker.

“I was serving below par today – pretty off – and it started connecting at the end,” Johnson said. “It took three hours to get it going the way I wanted to. That’s how I want to serve more, and then I ended up finding it when it counted.”

The pair battled to a 6-6 stalemate before Johnson claimed the tiebreaker to take the set 7-6(6) and secure the Bruins’ fourth point of the match.

Johnson’s win against Djuric is his second of the season after beating the three-time ITF singles champion Feb. 21.

“I, honestly, was so nervous. I was shaking,” said junior Andy Nguyen on watching the court one showdown. “I feel like watching, in my opinion, is more nervous than playing because you really have no control over the outcome or anything. All I want is for my teammates to do well – that’s even more important than me winning – and just seeing Spencer get that out, it was unreal.”

Nguyen logged the Bruins’ first singles victory of the day on court four – his second consecutive win after returning to the lineup March 8. The junior made quick work of Andrin Casanova, winning 7-5, 6-3.

The court four battle was the only match to conclude in straight sets, as the other five all went to third sets.

“(It was) fantastic, and I know he’s capable of playing that kind of tennis,” Martin said. “That’s why I brought him here. … These last two matches, I finally feel like he sees it. He understands it. He’s relaxing. He’s playing his tennis. He’s playing for all the right reasons, not trying to prove himself – or whatever it might be.”

But the Bruin win wasn’t set in stone.

No. 104 sophomore Rudy Quan fell 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 to Nathan Trouve on court two. The Trojans’ lone point of the match snapped Quan’s seven-match singles win streak and marked his first loss since Jan. 24.

It was also the second meeting between the pair this season after Quan defeated Trouve in straight sets in the rivals’ first matchup.

On court five, senior Aadarsh Tripathi earned his third consecutive singles victory, defeating Jack McCarthy 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 to put the Bruins one point away from victory and set up Johnson’s clincher.

Multiple players credited the large crowd and the UCLA band with providing the energy needed to sustain the three-hour contest.

“It was a great crowd,” Martin said. “I was really proud of our supporters to come out and help us because it really does make a difference. And that UCLA band, I’m telling you … when they’re there to play for us, we come through.”

The Bruins started the day off strong by clinching the doubles point. Johnson and Tripathi earned just their third doubles victory of the season against Casanova and McCarthy. The 6-3 finish also marked Johnson’s 100th career win.

Senior Gianluca Ballotta and redshirt junior Emon van Loben Sels capped it off with a 6-4 defeat of Connor Church and Djuric, their seventh doubles victory since pairs were switched up in late January.