A familiar foe brought Arizona tennis a new result at the Racquet Club Collegiate Invitational in Midland, Texas.

Claudio Christen and Bruno Alcala captured Arizona’s first doubles title of the year yesterday against Arkansas’ nationally 12th-ranked Blake Strode and Colin Mascall 8-5. It was the same two that handed the Wildcats a loss in last year’s tournament.

“”When they play solid doubles, they can beat the top teams in the country,”” said UA assistant coach Tom Lloyd, who described the weekend’s doubles play as “”nothing special,”” rather, just solid overall matches.

“”For these guys to come through and take the doubles in the fashion they did is the way to put an exclamation point on the weekend,”” he added.

On Saturday, the pair narrowly defeated Texas’ Hubert Chodkiewicz and Kellen Damico 9-8 to advance into the finals. Although Arizona failed to capitalize on multiple chances to break, the duo eventually won the tiebreaker in a hard-fought windy match.

Despite Christen’s recent success, Lloyd cited a lack of mental focus throughout his singles matches during the tournament. Christen split Friday’s play by defeating UTA’s Gonzalo Bienzobas 6-2, 6-1, but falling to Baylor’s David Galic 7-6, 6-3, in a match that should have been won, Lloyd said.

“”(Christen) realizes what he did mentally how he took himself out of the match,”” Lloyd said. “”He knew before I even said anything.””

Lloyd said he views the tournament like each fall invitational – a learning experience that helps benefit the team while providing confidence

Alcala also split his singles play, by defeating SMU’s Taylor St. Eve 6-3, 6-3, and losing to Texas Tech’s Ilya Babinciuc 6-2, 6-3.