UCLA Men Advance to Final

The UCLA men’s tennis team, inspired by an umpire’s poor call and its poor doubles play, defeated Louisiana State, 4-1, Monday at Athens, Ga., to advance to the NCAA national championship.

The Bruins (26-2), seeded No. 1 in the 16-team tournament, will play the University of Georgia, a 4-1 winner over Mississippi, in today’s final at Athens. UCLA will be going after its first national title since 1984 and its 16th since 1950.

Early on it looked as if the Bruins might not get a chance at a title. They lost the doubles point in the match, which goes to the team that wins two of three doubles matches. It was only the fourth time in 28 dual matches this season that UCLA lost the doubles point.

The Bruins’ Jean-Noel Grinda and Jong Min-Lee, ranked No. 6 nationally, lost at No. 1 doubles to Michal Chmela and Daniel Kiernan, 9-7, and UCLA’s Jason Cook and Brandon Kramer, No. 7 in the country, were defeated by LSU’s Tom Hand and Ed Rubin, 8-6.

At No. 2 doubles, LSU led, 7-6, and was ahead, 30-15, in the 14th game when a shot by Hand went long of the baseline by four inches. Umpire Al Klassen of San Diego overruled the Bruin players and said the shot was good and the Tigers led, 40-15. LSU ended the match on the next point to lead, 1-0.

“It got us fired up,” Cook said. “We were already kind of aggravated we were in that situation anyway. In retrospect I think it helped us win the match.”

The Bruins then dominated five of the six singles matches. LSU won a total of only eight games in the first set in five of the six matches. The seventh-ranked Grinda, who had struggled in two earlier matches in the tournament, hammered the Tigers’ 13th-ranked Chmela, 6-1, in the first set of No. 1 singles.

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In the NCAA women’s championships at Gainesville, Fla., No. 5-seeded Agnes Muzamel of Mississippi and No. 8 Michelle Dasso of Notre Dame were upset in the opening round. Mariel Verban of Wake Forest beat Muzamel, 7-5, 6-4, and Katarina Valkyova of San Diego defeated Dasso, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3.