Top-Seeded UCLA Heads to Ojai for Pac-12s

The No. 2 UCLA men's tennis team is taking its 42nd regular-season conference title into tournament play at this week's Pac-12 Championships (April 25-28) in Ojai, Calif. Seeded first, the Bruins earned a bye into the quarterfinals, where they will face the winner of Utah and Arizona Thursday at noon. The Utes and Wildcats are seeded eighth and ninth, respectively. Each match will be played at Libbey Park. UCLA also has a contingent playing at The Ojai 118th Annual Open Tournament (April 24-29). Pac-12 Networks will provide live television coverage of Friday's semifinals (1 p.m. and 4 p.m., PT) and Saturday's final (3 p.m.).

UCLA VS. UTAH/ARIZONA
The Bruins hold a perfect 14-0 mark versus Utah, most recently taking down the Utes, 4-0, in last week's regular-season finale. Versus Arizona, UCLA holds a 70-1 all-time record. The Bruins have also faced the Wildcats recently, knocking them off in Tucson, Ariz. on April 15. The 4-0 win clinched an undefeated Pac-12 road mark for the Bruins, who won the doubles point before securing straight-set victories on courts 2, 3 and 5. Keegan Smith and Evan Zhu each won a tiebreaker, while Zhu clinched the overall decision.

LAST WEEK
UCLA took down No. 38 Utah at Los Angeles Tennis Center, 4-0, to secure an 8-0 conference mark and the outright Pac-12 regular-season title. The April 20 match also represented the team's Senior Day, as Austin Rapp, Martin Redlicki and Logan Staggs were each honored at the conclusion of doubles play. Fittingly, Rapp clinched the victory with a 6-0, 6-4 win over Russell Benkaim on court 6.

TOURNAMENT TIME
Since the Pac-12 Championships adopted the team-tournament format in 2012, UCLA has claimed the top spot three times (2013, 2014 and 2016). The Bruins have reached the tournament final each of the past two years, defeating California by a 4-1 score in 2016 and falling to USC, 4-3, in a down-to-the-wire 2017 championship match.

REDLICKI'S RUN
Redlicki has been named the Pac-12 Men's Tennis Scholar-Athlete of the Year for 2018, the conference announced Tuesday. In place to recognize accomplishments on and off the field of play, the award is representative of the sport's most outstanding senior student-athlete. Redlicki has been a force on the court and in the classroom, recently picking up his 100th career singles victory while holding a cumulative 3.61 grade-point average (GPA). Currently the No. 1 singles player according to Oracle/ITA, the Boca Raton, Fla. native is in line for the third Pac-12 All-Academic honor and fourth ITA Scholar-Athlete selection of his career. Redlicki is also a three-time All-Pac-12 performer and was named the ITA Rookie of the Year as a freshman in 2015. The political science and communications double major has also been one of the nation's best on the doubles courts, capturing the NCAA Doubles Championship with Mackenzie McDonald in 2016. He has twice been one half of the Pac-12 Doubles Team of the Year, joining McDonald in 2016 and Evan Zhu in 2017. Redlicki is also looking to become just the fourth four-time All-American in program history (since 1957). He currently holds career records of 105-30 (singles) and 81-27 (doubles). Redlicki is the fifth Bruin to capture the award since it was established in 2007-08, joining Mathieu Dehaine (2008), Michael Look (2009), Clay Thompson (2014) and Dennis Mkrtchian (2015).

TERRIFIC TRIO
When Maxime Cressy was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week for matches played April 9-15, the honor marked the third of Cressy's junior campaign and sixth of 2018 for the Bruins. It also represented Cressy's second in a row, making the Hermosa Beach, Calif. native just the fourth student-athlete to accomplish that feat. No other Pac-12 team has garnered more than three total awards this year. In addition to Cressy's three awards (March 6, April 10, April 17), Zhu has claimed two (Jan. 30, April 3) and Smith the final one (Feb. 20). Cressy, Smith and Zhu went a combined 19-0 in conference play.

HOME COOKING
UCLA won all 14 of its regular-season matches at LATC in 2018, outscoring opponents by a 74-8 margin. The Bruins tallied 10 sweeps in those matches and never surrendered more than two points. The perfect record continued a run of recent home success for the Bruins, who have captured 43 consecutive on-campus matches dating back to the 2014-15 season. Including a pair of NCAA Championships triumphs, UCLA went 16-0 at Sunset Canyon Tennis Courts as construction moved them out of LATC. The Bruins also held an unblemished home mark in 2016, as they won all 11 of their matches at LATC.

TOP-RANKED BRUINS
For the third straight week, the Bruins sat atop the USTA College Tennis Top 25. The latest version was released April 18. UCLA is No. 2 in the Oracle/ITA Team Rankings, meanwhile, with the most recent version also released April 24. Senior Redlicki, who began the dual-match season as the nation's top-ranked player by Oracle/ITA, completed the regular season at No. 1. He occupied the top spot in seven of the nine installments. The Boca Raton, Fla. native is 20-5 (11-3 in dual matches) on the season. He holds an impressive 16-4 mark against ranked opponents. Joining Redlicki in the singles rankings are Bruins Smith (No. 52), Zhu (80) and Staggs (86). The doubles team of Austin Rapp-Smith, meanwhile, is slotted at No. 14, while Redlicki-Zhu is No. 73.

ITA INDOORS RUN
Seventh-seeded UCLA became the lowest-seeded team to advance to an ITA Team Indoor Championships final under the current seeding system last month in Seattle. After dispatching 10-seed Illinois in the first round, 4-2, the Bruins pulled off improbable upsets of second-seeded Ohio State, 4-1, and sixth-seeded Texas A&M, 4-2. The Bruin journey would come to a close in the title match, where UCLA fell to No. 1 Wake Forest, 4-2, despite winning the doubles point. The Bruins did not once drop the doubles point during their four matches, with their court 2 team of Austin Rapp and Keegan Smith shining the brightest. The senior-freshman duo went 3-0 on the tournament, clinching the doubles point on each occasion. The Austin Rapp-Smith team was rewarded for its performance, as it earned All-Tournament Team recognition. Smith also went on to earn the first Pac-12 Player of the Week honor of his career on Feb. 20.

FALL BALL
A number of Bruins put on championship performances throughout the fall. Austin Rapp did double duty at the San Diego State Fall Invitational (Oct. 6-8), claiming the Flight 1 championships for both singles and doubles (with Goldberg). Smith took the top spot at the Jack Kramer Collegiate Tournament (Nov. 2-5), edging out then-No. 8 Tom Fawcett of Stanford for the singles crown. The Larry Easley Memorial Classic (Nov. 3-5) singles title went to Cressy, who also picked up the consolation championship at the Sherwood Collegiate Cup (Jan. 12-15).

PROFESSIONAL BRUINS
Dennis Novikov picked up a 6-4, 6-3 win over Christian Garin at the $50,000 Morelos Challenger, which spanned from Feb. 19-25. It marked Novikov's third Challenger title. Mackenzie McDonald, meanwhile, nearly shocked the professional tennis world Jan. 17 in second-round play at the Australian Open. The Piedmont, Calif. native, who turned professional after the 2016 season, fought third-seeded Grigor Dimitrov to five sets before falling, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 0-6, 8-6. McDonald won four qualifying matches in order to reach the main draw, where he posted a first-round victory over Elias Ymer, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. In other recent Grand-Slam action, Jean-Julien Rojer (2000-02), joined Horia Tecau to take the men's doubles title at the US Open in September. They defeated the Spanish pair of Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez, 6-4, 6-3.

HEAD COACH BILLY MARTIN
Head coach Billy Martin is in his 25th season as head coach of the Bruins, and 35th on the staff. During his tenure, Martin's teams have accumulated 14 conference championships and the 2005 NCAA title. Just two of Martin's teams have finished outside of the top five teams at the season-ending NCAA Championships. They have also not finished outside of the top three teams in the Pac-12 standings. He has earned Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors four times (1996, 2012-14) and the ITA National Coach of the Year award once (1996). Martin has also led three players (Benjamin Kohlloeffel in 2006, Marcos Giron in 2014 and Mackenzie McDonald in 2016) to the NCAA Singles Championship and two teams (J. Gimelstob/S. Muskatirovic in 1996 and M. McDonald/M. Redlicki in 2016) to the NCAA Doubles crown. An ITA Tennis Hall of Famer, Martin was named the "Junior Player of the Century" by Inside Tennis Magazine. Before turning pro, he played one season at UCLA (1975), during which the Bruins captured an NCAA team championship. He also won the NCAA Singles Championship. Martin holds an overall record of 568-119 (.827) overall and a 156-27 (.852) mark in Pac-12 play.