| Men’s Tennis |
|---|
| USC — 4 |
| UCLA — 3 |
After a blustery week of rain in Los Angeles, the sight of blue skies over the courts at Marks Tennis Stadium seemed like a good omen for the Bruins.
But the storm was far from over.
Spirits had been high as No.22 UCLA Bruins (5-3) journeyed across town with a resounding 7-0 victory over UNLV (6-4) in their rearview mirror. The familiar foe that awaited them, however, was an entirely different beast: a nationally ranked arsenal with years of rivalry to wield as motivation.
No.14 USC Trojans (8-3) wasted no time in defending their home turf, with Andrin Casanova and Jack McCarthy claiming a 6-4 win over the Bruin pairing of junior Spencer Johnson and senior Aadarsh Tripathi. A few courts over, USC’s Max Exsted and Nathan Trouve posted an equal score against sophomore Rudy Quan and freshman Bengt Reinhard to clinch the doubles point.
Refusing defeat without a fight, UCLA rallied to find their footing and shift the momentum. Redshirt junior Emon van Loben Sels, the Bruins’ highest-ranking singles player, notched a 6-4, 6-1 win against McCarthy on court three. Quan faced Trouve for a second contest, this time one-on-one, and broke the tie with a 7-5, 7-5 victory to celebrate his birthday, which aligned with the rivalry match-up.
USC retaliated with two wins of their own: Casanova bested Tripathi in a fiery three-set match 1-6, 6-0, 7-5, and Exsted defeated UCLA’s junior Andy Nguyen 6-3, 7-6 on the neighboring court.
Johnson’s 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 triumph over Trojan Branko Djuric yielded yet another tie, and the weight of the deciding point landed on court six, where Bruin redshirt freshman Cassius Chinlund dueled USC’s Niels Hoffmann.
The hard-fought battle ended in three as Hoffmann delivered a rivalry victory to the Trojans’ boisterous home crowd, chipping away little by little at the all-time crosstown record.
It was not a total loss for the Bruins, however, who seemed to match up well with a dynamic, high-performing team. Now 5-3, they return to Westwood with the challenge of the annual Pacific Coast Men’s Doubles Championship on the horizon and strive to build on their earlier success. UCLA men’s tennis will next travel to face San Diego Feb. 26 in La Jolla, California.
