UC Irvine Doubles Team Comes Through as No. 1 UCLA Is Upset, 5-4

The UC Irvine men’s tennis team convincingly won the Big West Conference title last week at the Ojai tournament.

Still, Saturday’s nonconference match against top-ranked UCLA loomed heavily.

After all, in the words of Coach Greg Patton, it was a “Gargantuan match.” He was hoping a victory would elevate UCI to a No. 1 seeding in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championships May 19-27 at Athens, Ga.

Whether it will do so remains to be seen.

But the Anteaters took a 4-2 lead in singles and then upset the Bruins, 5-4, at Irvine when the No. 2 doubles team of Mark Kaplan and Richard Lubner won their match.

Though the victory probably won’t give UCI a No. 1 ranking--the Anteaters lost twice earlier this season to California--”at least we have bragging rights now,” Patton said.

Indeed. The No. 4-ranked Anteaters dominated the singles competition ith Kaplan, ranked seventh in the nation among individuals, beating the Bruins’ Brian Garrow, 6-3, 6-4. Garrow was substituting at No. 1 for Buff Farrow, who was suffering from an upset stomach.

“I knew he was going to come in all the way (to the net),” said Kaplan, a senior. “I knew when he started in I had him.”

Kaplan was on target most of the match, hitting strong forehands down the line and out of Garrow’s reach. Meanwhile, UCI’s Trevor Kronemann defeated Pacific 10 Conference singles’ champion Pat Galbraith , 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-4).

“He plays the same game every time,” Kronemann said of Galbraith. “It was close and usually I get tight in that situation, but I never felt in jeopardy.”

Said Galbraith, who won the singles title last week at Ojai: “I just wasn’t aggressive enough.”

Mike Briggs also won for Irvine, beating Jason Netter, 6-3, 6-1. Shige Kanroji of Irvine defeated Bill Behrens, 5-7, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.

The match got exciting for 1,200 fans in the doubles competition.

The country’s top-ranked doubles team of Galbraith and Garrow easily defeated Briggs and Kronemann, 7-6 (8-6), 6-1,

and then Carsten Hoffman and Mike Roberts lost to Behrens and Giora Payes of UCLA tying the match, 4-4.

That left the outcome in balance when Kaplan and Lubner faced UCLA’s Billy Barber and Mark Quinney in No. 2 doubles.

After losing the first set, 6-3, Kaplan and Lubner fought back to win the second set in a tiebreaker, 7-6 (7-4).

The teams fought to a 5-5 score before Kaplan-Lubner broke serve to take a 6-5 lead. Then, after a strong serve by Lubner, Barber managed only a soft return to Kaplan, who sent a forehand down the line for the winner.

“I knew we weren’t out of the woods after the singles,” Patton said. “It came down to the wire, but it was only appropriate that Mark (Kaplan) finished his college career this way.”

Said Lubner: “When it was match point I couldn’t hear anything. I had been playing a conventional serve but went for the big serve (at match point) and it paid off.”

Anteaters, who won 11 consecutive dual matches, finished the regular season 24-6. The Bruins, who lost their two matches, are 24-3.