It was a tough weekend for the Arizona men’s tennis team (8-3) when it was defeated by No. 7 USC 7-0, and couldn’t finish its battle with No. 6 UCLA after rain forced the teams to cancel the match.

“”Although we lost 7-0, and you think, ‘Oh man, they got killed’, the end score didn’t show what really happened,”” said Bruno Alcala. “”We need to get to a point where we know we can beat them. We were right there, it could have easily been a different story.””

Alcala and Ravid Hazi won Arizona’s only doubles match against USC, 8-4.

“”I thought the conditions were tough,”” Jay Goldman said. “”Had they been different, I feel like we could have competed at a higher level. I was hurting out there.””

Goldman said he started experiencing pain in his right hamstring by the middle of his third set.

It wasn’t necessarily the bad weather that hurt Arizona this weekend, it was more so the continuous stop-and-go conditions that made it difficult for the players to keep their focus.

“”Even though we lost, I think we proved to each other that we can compete with a top-10 team,”” Arizona head coach Tad Berkowitz said.

The Wildcats’ chance to refocus was cut short when the match against UCLA was cancelled in mid-doubles play, due to rain.

Alcala and Hazi were, once again, on their way to a win in the doubles category; the score was 4-2 when the match was stopped.

“”I guess we’ll just have to get them at home next time,”” Goldman said.