The women’s tennis team set out with one goal in mind for this past weekend — win as a team. The Wildcats finished the weekend with dominating victories at home over North Texas and Cal Poly with a score of 6-1 for each match.
“This was a really good weekend for us in many ways,” women’s head coach Vicky Maes said. “The most striking improvement was in doubles play. We competed much more composed and took each match early on, which is something we struggled with in past matches.”
On Friday, Arizona swept North Texas in doubles play. Sophomores Kim Stubbe and Susan McRann were the first duo to claim a doubles match against the Mean Green’s Barbora Vykydalova and Ilona Serchenko with a score of 8-1. Senior Sarah Landsman teamed up with freshman Hailey Johnson to win the second doubles match for the Wildcats, 8-2.
The good play carried over into singles play as the Wildcats won five out of the six singles matches. Natasha Marks and Lacey Smyth continued their undefeated streak in singles play. Marks defeated North Texas’ Nadia Lee 7-6(2), 6-2, while Smyth claimed the match on court one with scores of 6-2, 7-6(5).
The Wildcats carried the momentum into Saturday as they took on Cal Poly.
Arizona defeated the Mustangs in two of the doubles matches with a forfeit by Cal Poly on court three.
The Wildcats dominated in singles, as Smyth, Marks, Stubbe, and McRann won their singles matches. Smyth and McRann took their matches into three sets before claiming their victories. Smyth won the first set 7-5, but fell in the second 2-6. In the third, Stubbe defeated Cal Poly’s Alexa Lee 10-5.
Meanwhile, on court four McRann won the first set with a tiebreaker, 7-6(4), but fell 5-7 in the second. In a tiebreaker and with a chance to claim the match for the team, McRann defeated the Mustangs’ Kathryn Webb 13-11.
“We beat two good teams at home and we will take that momentum into next week,” Maes said.
Arizona improves to 5-2 for the season and remains undefeated at home.
Meanwhile, the men’s tennis team continued its slump at home as Arizona fell to No. 24 San Diego in a devastating 7-0 loss on Friday and to Denver 6-1 on Sunday.
The struggle began with doubles play, as the Wildcats came away with only one win against San Diego.
In the first frustrating match of the day, sophomore Andre Vidaller and freshman Sumeet Shinde teamed up on court one and fell to the Torero’s Nikola Bubnic and Thibaut Visy. Not only was this the first loss of the day, it was also the first time this season that Arizona finished a doubles match with zero games won. The score of the match was 8-0 in favor of San Diego.
As singles play kicked off, yells of frustration rang from LaNelle Robson Tennis Center as the Wildcats tasted defeat one-by-one. All the matches only went into just two sets.
This marks the second time this season that Arizona finished a match with no match points against an opponent.
“In doubles we showed signs of improvement today,” men’s head coach Tad Berkowitz said. “They are a top-25 team and we are really young. We showed signs of improvement over last weekend. We just need to keep working hard and keep improving and our time will come down the road.”
The Wildcats had one more opportunity this past weekend to end its four-game slump, but luck just wasn’t in Arizona’s favor against Denver.
The day started off promising as the Wildcats clinched the doubles point.
The great start would not last long as, one by one, the Wildcats fell to the Pioneers and lost all six of the singles matches.
It was up to Vidaller and fellow sophomores Giacomo Miccini and Kieren Thompson to pull off an upset against Denver.
Vidaller, Miccini, and Thompson were all down a set and well into fighting for second set comebacks when everything began to fall apart.
Vidaller, a Brazil native, was tied 6-6 with Bonin and down 1-3 in the tiebreaker when he went down. Vidaller was carried off the court, and the leg injury cost Vidaller his singles match and Arizona the match against Denver.
“We’ve taken a few losses,” Berkowitz said. “Today for example, we just got quickly dejected when the momentum shifted. If we just gain our confidence back these are matches I think we could win.”
