diff --git a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionServerReadRequestMetrics.java b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionServerReadRequestMetrics.java
index 297aa50f715..2cd155977c4 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionServerReadRequestMetrics.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/TestRegionServerReadRequestMetrics.java
@@ -89,6 +89,8 @@ public class TestRegionServerReadRequestMetrics {
   @BeforeClass
   public static void setUpOnce() throws Exception {
     // Default starts one regionserver only.
+    TEST_UTIL.getConfiguration().setBoolean(LoadBalancer.TABLES_ON_MASTER, true);
+    TEST_UTIL.getConfiguration().setBoolean(LoadBalancer.SYSTEM_TABLES_ON_MASTER, true);
     TEST_UTIL.startMiniCluster();
     admin = TEST_UTIL.getAdmin();
     serverNames = admin.getClusterStatus().getServers();