Cougars Take Road Trip to California

After defeating Oklahoma last week in the World Team Tennis Tournament, the BYU men's tennis team will head to Southern California to take on a bigger task -- the nationally ranked Bruins of UCLA.

The Cougars will meet up with UCLA on Friday afternoon at 1:30, then they will travel south to play the Univesity of San Diego at noon on Saturday. Finally they will take on the University of Southern California on Tuesday at 1:30 in the afternoon.

"We always play a very, very tough schedule," said men's coach Jim Osborne. "It will be a brutal road trip -- 3 top 20 teams. Our goal is to sneak a win out of one of those teams this early in the year."

UCLA is ranked No. 3 in the nation, UCLA is at No. 13 and San Diego is No. 54. The Cougars are ranked at No. 65.

The Bruins have six players that are nationally ranked, but none in the top 20. Jean-Julian Rojer and Jean-Noel Grinda are at No. 27 and No. 28 respectively. Lassi Ketola is No. 32, Erfan Djahangiri is No. 47, Travis Rettenmaier is No. 58 and Tobia Clemens is No. 97.

BYU has already seen a glimpse of the UCLA team and the result was positive. BYU's Carlos Lozano faced Djahaangiri earlier this year, defeating the Bruin, 6-2, 6-2 at the ITA All-Americans in October.

USC also brings three ranked players in No. 18 Andrew Park, No. 56 Nick Rainey, and No. 96 Parker Collins. The doubles team of Rainey and Ryan Moore is ranked No. 8 in the nation.

The Cougars have ranked players in Carlos Lozano, at No. 73 and Gert Vilms, at No. 81.