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UCLA has beaten their crosstown rivals each of the three times they’ve met this season and will look to beat them for the fourth time when the Bruins take on the Southern Cal Trojans in the Quarterfinals of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships.
The Bruins advanced to this morning’s match by defeating both Michigan and the weather on Friday when their match was moved from the campus of Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to an indoor facility at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill an hour to the east due to rain.
It didn’t matter.
The Bruins started off the match by winning the doubles point. First, Martin Redlicki and Evan Zhu defeated Myles Schalet and Connor Johnston, 6-4. Then, Maxime Cressy and Bryce Pereira beat Alex Knight and Harrison Brown also by a score of 6-4.
As the teams moved to singles action, Redlicki gave the Bruins a 2-0 lead by topping Knight, 6-4, 6-2 while Cressy put UCLA up 3-0 by beating Carter Lin, 6-3, 6-4.
That left UCLA needing a win on just one of the remaining four courts.
Unfortunately, they didn’t get it on either court four or court where Logan Skaggs lost Mattias Siimar, 2-6, 4-6 and Zhu lost to Runhao Hua, 1-6, 6-2, 1-6.
On court three, Keegan Smith was able to get past Myles Schalet 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 to score UCLA’s fourth point of the match and give the Bruins a 4-2 win over the Wolverines.
As I mentioned, so far this season, UCLA has defeated the Trojans three times already. But, today, a spot in the NCAA Men’s Tennis Final Four is on the line when the two teams meet. So, it should make it a little more intense on both sides.
While I would like to say that I expect the Bruins to roll over the Trojans, you can’t really expect that when these two teams meet.
But, the bottom line is that these guys are going to have to get past their crosstown rivals again to advance to the Final Four. The Trojans are standing between the Bruins and a national championship in men’s tennis and UCLA will have to go out there this morning and beat ‘SC to advance to tomorrow’s semifinal match.
This is your UCLA Bruins vs. Southern Cal Trojans NCAA Men’s Tennis Quarterfinals open thread.
Go Bruins!!! Beat ‘SC!!! And, bring home 117!!!