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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Top Seed UCLA Begins Quest for NCAA Title with 4-0 Win Over Vanderbilt


©Colette Lewis 2013--
Urbana, IL--

With their clinical 4-0 victory over No. 16 seed Vanderbilt Thursday night, top seed UCLA looked every bit the part of tournament favorite.  And although he was pleased with the play of his team, head coach Billy Martin sees Virginia as the rightful owner of that designation.

"Quite honestly I think they deserved to be seeded No. 1," said Martin. "They're undefeated, they won the National Indoors, which is the only tournament we've all been to. So I wouldn't necessarily have argued for us to be the No. 1 seed. The powers that be did it, but in my opinion, they're the team to beat."

Taking the court around sunset, the Bruins were facing a Vanderbilt team which much less experience at the collegiate majors.  UCLA won the doubles point and took all six first sets in singles, so any drama faded with the last of the daylight.

Clay Thompson earned the second Bruins point with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Marc van der Merwe at line 5, and Adrien Puget made it 3-0 UCLA with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Jeff Offerdahl at line 3.  UCLA's Karue Sell was up 6-4, 5-1 against Rhys Johnson at line 6, but he was broken and Johnson held to give the Commodores top two players a chance to make an impression in their matches.  Ryan Lipman won the second set from Dennis Novikov at No. 1, and AJ Austin was toe-to-toe with Marcos Giron at No. 2 as Johnson fought off four match points before finally succumbing  6-4, 6-3.

"I'm always worried, because the first one at the final site, everyone's always nervous," said Martin. "That's the good thing about having some guys who have been through this before. Everybody but Karue has been through this before and that always helps. We got off to a good start in doubles, with 3 leading us there, and then at 1, so it wasn't so intense right from the start. And then we got off to a good start also in singles, so all in all I'm really happy to get through this first one."

With their quarterfinal opponent, the winner of the Kentucky - Duke match, barely starting their singles when UCLA finished, Martin could only be pleased with that scenario.

"They're probably going to go until 1 o'clock," said Martin, who then joked, "Let them go to until 3 in the morning. But anyhow, they've got a day to rest, so we'll have a barnburner against either one on Saturday."
=========================================
No. 1 UCLA 4,  No. 16 Vanderbilt 0
7 p.m. CT – South Courts
Singles
1. #27 Dennis Novikov (UCLA) vs. #10 Ryan Lipman (VAN)  6-3, 3-6*
2. #25 Marcos Giron (UCLA) vs. #48 Gonzales Austin (VAN)  6-1, 6-5*
3. #22 Adrien Puget (UCLA) def. Jeff Offerdahl (VAN)  6-2, 6-1
4. #75 Dennis Mkrtchian (UCLA) vs. Kris Yee (VAN)  6-4, 3-3*
5. #119 Clay Thompson (UCLA) def. Marc van der Merwe (VAN)  6-1, 6-2
6. Karue Sell (UCLA) def. Rhys Johnson (VAN)  6-4, 6-3

Doubles
1. #42 Giron/Novikov (UCLA) def. #38 Lipman/Austin (VAN)  8-4
2. #77 Puget/Sell (UCLA) vs. van der Merwe/Johnson (VAN)  5-5*
3. Brigham/Thompson (UCLA) def. Offerdahl/Eswaran (VAN)  8-0

Order of Finish: Doubles (3,1); Singles (5,3,6)
* = unfinished


1 comments:

Austin said...

Great day of matches yesterday. Scoreboard could use some improvements, but I guess not too bad overall. The weather was the real winner of the day, beautiful and the rain never came, hope the same happens today for the women.

Fatigue should not be a factor because of Duke's late start. They have a day off and dont play til late afternoon on Saturday. Only two matches even went to three sets, and neither was a terribly long, grueling three-setter. I will admit I went to bed when most of the matches were in the second sets, it was just taking too long and seemed like Duke had it under control, but pretty good match overall, UK certainly had chances to flip the script.

Pepp-Memphis was a good match. Memphis was closing in on the last match that didnt get completed, but Pepperdine dominated at most spots in singles.

Really surprised by Oklahoma's loss. First, I thought they would win outright, but a little surprised about the scores of their losses too.

Tenn-Miss State was one of those weird ones. All singles matches fairly lopsided, Stropp once again couldnt close. Libietis was going to roll to the win at #1 anyway.

UVA-Cal, complete mismatch, but we all knew that coming in, ditto for UCLA-Vandy. I thought UVA & UCLA were given sweetheart draws, both would have struggled with teams like Tulsa or Texas more than the teams they faced.

OSU-A&M are two of the best doubles teams and they showed it. A&M really was behind the eight ball once they lost doubles. All of the singles matches were competitive, but OSU was just a little better at each spot.

Started getting a little nervous for USC after they split the first sets with Baylor and needed to pull off a comeback and close out the matches they led in. Gomez was impressive. Baylor was leading in the other two matches, so this one was probably heading toward 4-3. I am curious about De Vroome though, without him they can't beat OSU.