As a team, the season for Arizona men’s tennis team is, in all likelihood, all but over. Starting today, however, four Wildcats will compete individually in the Pac-10 Championships in Ojai, Calif.
“”The Pac-10 Championships is an individual tournament as opposed to a team tournament,”” said head coach Tad Berkowitz. “”The guys we are taking are all playing well and looking forward to the postseason.””
The tournament will take place from Thursday to Sunday, and four players will represent Arizona in the singles and doubles portion. Senior Geoff Embry, sophomore Frank Chen, and freshmen Mario Urquidi and Andre Vidaller will compete in the 32-player singles portion. Once that is complete, Embry and Vidaller will join forces for the first time this season. Chen and Urquidi will compete with each other for the fourth time. As a duo, Chen and Urquidi hold an overall 1-2 record and finished 0-1 in doubles matches at the No. 3 slot.
Of the four, Vidaller and Embry have found the most success this season overall. In his swan song, Embry has compiled a 13-11 overall record and 2-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference. In doubles, the senior has a 7-13 record (0-5 in the Pac-10). He will face off with Cal’s Nick Andrews.
Vidaller is the only Wildcat participating in the championships to not have a losing record in Pac-10 singles play so far this year, holding a 3-3 record in the conference. Overall, Vidaller is 11-9 along with an 8-12 record in doubles. Vidaller will take on USC’s Emilio Gomez early this morning.
Urquidi enters the Pac-10 championships holding a 13-13 overall record, but is only 3-11 in doubles this season. Urquidi will take on Stanford’s No. 2-seeded Bradley Klahn this afternoon. The sparingly used (at least in singles) Chen has a 1-1 record on the season, along with a 3-6 doubles record. Chen is scheduled to face the No. 5 seeded Amit Inbar of UCLA this morning.
The Wildcats are desperately seeking some success in the Pac-10 conference after compiling a 0-6 record in conference play this year. This was the first time the Wildcats ended the season winless in the conference since the 2006-07 season when they went 0-7, back when ASU was still a part of the conference.
