The Arizona men’s tennis team defeated rival No. 44-ranked ASU 4-2 on Saturday, April 22, at 6 p.m. in a thrilling late-night battle at Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe.

Squaring off in rival territory, the Wildcats got off to a quick start by earning the doubles point. At line one, No. 49-ranked Jonas Ziverts and Jay Friend were the first Wildcat pair to win with a score of 6-2 over ASU’s No. 54 doubles pair of Jacob Bullard and Constantinos Koshis. Gustaf Strom and Eric Padgham clinched the doubles point against the Sun Devils with a 6-4 victory at line three. With two doubles wins, the Wildcats took the 1-0 lead heading into the singles competition.

With the score at 1-0, the Wildcats only needed three singles matches to secure the win. Strom was the first Wildcat to win in a pair of 6-4 and 6-3 victories at line three. The Wildcats then dropped two singles matches with losses from Ziverts and Herman Hoeyeraal to help edge the Sun Devils to a tied game at 2-2. Colton Smith was the second Wildcat singles win in a 7-6 (9-7) third set tiebreaker after two 3-6 and 6-3 sets to push Arizona ahead of ASU 3-2. Nick Lagaev tallied the third singles win and clinched the game for the Wildcats in a thrilling straight set win with 7-6 (7-5) and 7-5 sets.

The Wildcats wrapped up the regular season with a solid win against No. 44 ASU and finished as regular-season Pac-12 runners-up. After earning Pac-12 tennis coach of the year in 2019 and 2021, head men’s tennis coach Clancy Shields will look to add back-to-back Pac-12 regular-season champions to his resume.

The Wildcats will face off against the University of Washington in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament on Thursday, April 27, at 3 p.m. in Ojai, California.

Follow Mary Grace Armistead on Twitter