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The men's tennis team waits in suspense to hear its seeding in the NCAA Championships. UCLA recei

The NCAA draw is out, and things could have been a lot worse for the UCLA men’s tennis team.

As the No. 10 seed in the tournament, the defending champions were granted some of their wishes.

The Bruins will host one of 16 NCAA Regionals at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on May 13 and 14, and they will stay away from dangerous teams they could have faced in the Round of 16.

“We are very happy with the draw, as we are comfortable with the teams we are playing,” redshirt junior Chris Surapol said.

For their first round, the Bruins will face Stony Brook, while Arizona and Colorado are scheduled to meet in the other regional at the LATC.

While the UCLA team feels confident about its first opponent, who won its first-ever Eastern Conference title this year, the second round might be a completely different story.

“Arizona is a dangerous school, even if we have already played them twice this year,” Surapol said.

Colorado, a team the Bruins have never played, could also be next. If all goes well after that, the Bruins would likely face seventh-seeded Illinois for their first match at Stanford.

“We know Illinois from last year and they had a good season, but nothing special,” UCLA coach Billy Martin said.

There were no teams the Bruins would’ve preferred in the first rounds, but there were some they undoubtedly wanted to avoid, and unseeded Washington was one of them.

“We did not want to play Washington for a third time this season, and we thought we were going to,” Martin said.

The Bruins met the Huskies twice this year, beating them in the National Indoors but losing 4-3 a few weeks ago in Pac-10 play.

More than a mere conference rival, No. 1 seed Georgia represented the biggest roadblock for the Bruins in their path to repeat as national champions.

“With an eighth or ninth seed we could have met Georgia as soon as the quarterfinals, and I wanted to stay away from them for as long as possible,” Martin said of the undefeated Bulldogs.

Their half of the draw did include No. 2 seed Pepperdine, against which the Bruins folded earlier this season in a close 4-3 decision.

“Pepperdine is obviously a tough possible opponent, but I don’t think they are as strong as Georgia,” Martin said.

The Bruins will not face crosstown rival USC this year, as the Trojans failed to make the NCAA Championships for the first time in history, leaving UCLA as the only college in the nation to have qualified each year.

“I don’t know what to expect at the NCAAs, but I can’t wait to give it a go,” freshman Michael Look said of his first tournament appearance.