University of Georgia Athletics
Still Only Three NCAA Triples
May 23, 2017 | Men's Tennis
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Let's let the expert talk for a moment: "No many players have done it, because it's a tough thing to do," former Stanford coach Dick Gould said of winning the triple crown at the NCAA Men's Tennis Championships.
Every year, a team wins the NCAA team title, someone wins the singles title and some duo wins the doubles. Only three times in the modern era, since 1977, has one player collected the best trophy at the end of all three tournaments: Stanford's Alex O'Brien (1992) and Bob Bryan (1998) and Georgia's Matias Boeker (2001). And they all did it in Athens. And Gould coached two of the three.
"Well, they were really good players," Gould said.
Just about the only thing missing from former Southern California star Steve Johnson's list of achievements with the Trojans — and by most any measure he had the greatest collegiate career ever, winning four team and two singles championships — is the "triple crown."
It's the most exclusive club in collegiate tennis.
"It just seemed way too easy," Georgia coach Manuel Diaz said recently of Boeker's run through the singles and doubles (with partner Travis Parrott) draws, dropping only one set. "He made it look too easy. [laughs] It was just incredible."
Before the team event was added in 1977, numerous players earned the previous version of the triple, winning the singles and doubles and thus helping the team earn enough points to capture the team championship — it's really more of a double with an extra prize at the end. It wasn't quite the same as the modern version, which adds a lot more matches to the NCAAs, but it was still an exceptional achievement.
Like the modern trio of triple crown winners, the names of the players that did it before '77 is basically a list of all-time greats and ITA Hall of Famers. Among them are USC's Rafael Osuna, Dennis Ralston, Bob Lutz and Stan Smith, UCLA's Larry Nagler and Herbert Flam and Stanford's Alex Mayer and John Whitlinger.
Stanford's John McEnroe came close in 1978, leading the Cardinal to the title and winning the singles in his only collegiate season. He and partner Bill Maze were the top seeds in doubles but lost in the semifinals.
Georgia's Mikael Pernfors also came close, in 1985, reaching the semifinals of the doubles with Allen Miller after winning the team and singles titles.
It's the doubles that seems to derail most quests for the triple, in part because if a player is in the hunt for both the singles and doubles titles and is struggling physically after so many matches in such a short period of time, it's usually the doubles that will get dumped.
In 2012, when Johnson was still in the hunt for the triple but nursing multiple injuries, he bailed on the doubles in the quarterfinals. As USC coach Peter Smith said, they "had to make choices" about how and when to expend Johnson's energy — and he was going for a second straight singles title and had a win streak that would ultimately reach 72 matches.
Stanford efficiently moved through the draw and won the team title in 1992, so O'Brien wasn't overly taxed entering the singles and doubles draws. The No. 3 seed in singles, his greatest test was as great as they come: in the quarterfinals he defeated North Carolina's Roland Thornqvist (now the very successful head coach of Florida's women's team) 7-6 in the third.
In the singles final, against Georgia's Wade McGuire and a spirited pro-Bulldog crowd, O'Brien won, 6-2, 6-3. In an all-Stanford doubles final, O'Brien and Chris Cocotos beat teammates Jason Yee and Vimal Patel in two tight sets.
Six years later, with Stanford already putting together the best season ever, going undefeated and dropping three team points all season, Bryan matched O'Brien's feat. While the Stanford team title was a lock, Bryan was only seeded sixth in the singles and he and twin brother Mike were the No. 4 seeds in the doubles.
Bryan needed three sets to get out of the first round in singles and won several tight two-setters en route to the final. There he faced teammate Paul Goldstein, seeded higher at No. 4, and beat him 6-2, 6-3. The doubles was a much tighter affair, with the Bryans dropping the first sets in the semis and the final.
For every player that is part of a deep run in the team event and makes another in the individual, Gould said, there will be at least one match when the coach on the court has to play a pivotal role.
"You're going to have a bad match and if your coach can get you through that bad match, when you're like: 'Oh, man, do I have to do this? Is it worth it?' You've got all that going through your mind and if your coach can get you through that match so you can survive it and win it, then you've got a shot," Gould said.
Boeker, the No. 3 seed, managed to avoid that kind of match, or else for him in 2001 a "bad" match was losing seven games, because that's the most he lost in a match in the singles tournament. He beat Brian Vahaly of Virginia, 6-2,6-4, in the final, his 18th straight singles win, with 12 of the final 13 coming in straight sets.
In doubles, Boeker and Parrot needed three sets to get out of the first round and made their way to the final without getting extended. They beat SMU's Jon Hallmark and Johan Brunstrom, 6-4, 7-5, in the final.
"Matias actually played better in the individual than he did in the team tournament, because it just took the pressure off and he just went out there and played," Diaz said. "He was such a cool customer that he didn't waste a whole lot of emotional energy, so he had plenty left in the tank. And Travis played so well in the doubles."
The following spring, Boeker became the only player in the modern era with both a triple crown and back to back NCAA singles championships. Boeker in 2015 was selected for Georgia's Circle of Honor and on Thursday will be inducted into the ITA Hall of Fame.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
