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Tobias Clemens

Tobias Clemens has been cleared by the NCAA to play in this week’s NCAA Championships, men’s tennis coach Billy Martin said Wednesday.

The NCAA investigated last week whether Clemens, UCLA’s top singles player and the No. 5 player in the nation, had taken prize money while playing in a German league prior to attending UCLA in 2000.

If he had taken prize money, that would have made him a professional and thus ineligible to play college sports.

“He is cleared,” Martin said. “We feel there is no doubt in anyone’s mind he is absolutely fine to play.”

According to Martin, both he and Clemens had to stay up late at night in order to get the necessary documentation from Germany.

The documentation proved that Clemens never took money, and that the league he played in wasn’t professional.

“We must have spent 30 hours up late at night, dealing with getting things overseas,” Martin said. “We were doing things at 1 a.m., trying to get a hold of people and getting faxes.”

Despite the fact that the incident is over, the manner in which it was conducted still leaves a bitter taste in Martin’s mouth.

According to Martin, three coaches whose teams are still alive in the NCAA tournament purposefully complained to the NCAA in order to provoke an investigation right at the most critical point of the season.

The triple entente was led by Craig Tiley of Illinois, along with Michael Center of Texas and Tim Cass of Texas A & M.

Martin spoke with Center about the situation on Wednesday.

“I let him know my uneasiness,” Martin said. “It’s one thing to feel that someone should be ineligible, but it’s another thing to do it at such a critical time.”

Martin feels that the timing was a premeditated attempt to try to bring down his team.

“They had all year to question this,” Martin added. “They did it just to get a competitive advantage, and that is what irks me.”

The trio only complained about a dozen or so players from the European club circuit, even though there are over 50 players in college tennis who had previously played in them.

And that dozen, according to Martin, are all in direct competition with Illinois, Texas and Texas A & M for the NCAA title.

None of the three coaches could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Texas would have to beat heavily favored Florida in order for UCLA to play them in the quarterfinals.

But if the two teams end up meeting, Martin knows it won’t be hard to fire his team up.

“If we were to play Texas, we can’t let our emotions get too crazy,” Martin said. “But this could certainly fire us up.”

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The UCLA men’s tennis team is currently in Athens, Ga., preparing for their first-round match against Oklahoma State, which takes place Saturday at 6 a.m.