NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships : Upsets Eliminate UCLA, UC Irvine, Cal

ATHENS, Ga. —  If the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. men’s tennis championships followed form, all four teams in the semifinals would have been from California.

But on a day when No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 California and No. 4 UC Irvine went by the wayside, only top-seeded Stanford advanced to the semifinals.

The Cardinal defeated Louisiana State, 5-3, in a rematch of last year’s title match.

Even so, for the first time since the current format began in 1977, three non-California teams--Georgia, South Carolina and Texas Christian--will be in today’s semifinals, which will match Stanford against South Carolina.

“Nothing is safe in this tournament,” UCLA Coach Glenn Bassett said. “It’s too competitive, too close.”

UCLA, after a stunning loss by its No. 1 doubles team of Brian Garrow and Pat Galbraith, was defeated by Texas Christian, 5-4.

UC Irvine, which had won 12 consecutive matches, lost to host Georgia, 5-1, before a crowd of 5,020. Irvine (25-7) was shut out in singles for only the second time this season.

California lost, 5-4, to South Carolina, a team that was 5-18 last year after injuries sidelined four starters.

TCU (26-6) gained its 16th consecutive victory and earned its first trip to the semifinals largely because of an improbable upset at No. 1 doubles.

Even Bassett, hardly given to fits of overconfidence, had to admit he “felt comfortable” with Garrow and Galbraith serving for the match after defeating TCU’s Clinton Banducci and Eric Lingg, 6-3, in the first set.

The defending national champions, Garrow and Galbraith were 19-0 in dual matches this year. But in a remarkable turnaround, Banducci and Lingg rallied to win the game and tie the second set, 5-5. Suddenly with momentum, they went on to win, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.

“I don’t know what it was,” Bassett said. “Maybe they got ahead and then started watching some of the other guys play.”

Said Tut Bartzen, TCU’s coach: “They might have underestimated the fact that we could play better than we were playing.”

But perhaps the match of the day was at No. 3 singles between Georgia’s Francisco Montana and UC Irvine’s Mike Briggs.

Serving with a 4-3 lead in the decisive set, Briggs hit a shot into the left corner of the court that appeared to be a winner. But Montana lunged, flicked his right wrist and then stumbled as the shot barely cleared the net and landed just inside the sideline. Briggs never touched it.

Even Briggs, who was so stunned he fell down, applauded. Montana then won the next two games to clinch the match 1-6, 6-2, 6-4.

“I closed my eyes and got lucky,” said Montana of his shot. “It turned the match around.”

Briggs later complained several times to umpire Bill Bower about fans making noise while play was in progress.

But Irvine Coach Greg Patton downplayed the problem, saying: “That’s college tennis. Mike is an intense athlete. He got a little flustered at the end.”