The Arizona men’s tennis team’s run to a Pac-12 Tournament title begins with an opponent that disrupted the Wildcats’ plans a year ago.
The No. 2-seeded Wildcats (20-5) will take on No. 7 seed Washington (12-10) at 3 p.m. Thursday in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament in Ojai, California. In 2022, the No. 8-seeded Huskies stunned No. 1 seed Arizona in the opening round of the event, likely costing UA the chance to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Instead, it was sent on the road, where it lost to North Carolina in the second round.
Arizona beat UW 4-0 at home on April 9, but it also beat Washington in the regular season last season.
“Last year, Washington really impacted how we finished our year,” UA captain Nick Lagaev said. “Even though we beat them on our home courts, I think the match is going to be completely different when we play them at the tournament, much like last year.”
Washington closed the regular season strong, defeating Stanford and Cal at home, so it will be coming into the Pac-12 Tournament with some momentum.
“We want to win the conference tournament championship and in order to do that, we need to beat Washington,” UA coach Clancy Shields said. “I think we’re going to try to keep the focus on us because if we play well and we do what we need to do, we can beat anybody.”
The goal all season for Arizona has been to host the NCAA Regionals, and that starts with making a deep run in the Pac-12 Tournament. The top 16 teams host and UA enters the Pac-12 Tournament ranked No. 14 in the nation.
“We don’t want to look too far ahead, but this is something where we’ve never won the conference tournament,” Shields said. “We’ve never gotten to the final, so even if we just get to the final, I think it’s a big step in the right direction for us.
“We want to get to the final. We want to at least give ourselves a chance to do that and we’re going to have to win a couple of tough matches.”
Cats too much for Sun Devils
The Wildcats closed their regular season with a strong 4-2 road win over Arizona State to clinch a share of the Pac-12 regular-season championship for the second straight year. It was the Wildcats’ third straight win over the Sun Devils and gave them a 6-2 conference record. Utah and USC also finished 6-2.
After taking the doubles point in convincing fashion, UA found itself in some trouble, dropping the first set in four of the six singles matches. UA’s Gustaf Strom took care of his match in straight sets with a 6-4, 6-3 win before both teams found themselves tied 2-2 with three matches in play.
Colton Smith dropped his first set 3-6, bouncing back with a 6-3 win in the second set before the third set went to a tiebreaker. Smith took a convincing 5-1 lead in the tiebreaker but dropped six of the next seven points to find himself facing match point. He was able to battle through that match point, winning the next three points to win the tiebreaker and match to put Arizona ahead 3-2.
Smith was in a similar position in the Wildcats’ previous match against Utah, with his third-set tiebreaker deciding who won the match. He fell short in Arizona’s 4-3 loss in Salt Lake City to the Utes.
“There were definitely a couple of flashbacks to the Utah match, but we learned a lot from that one,” Smith said. “I knew I wasn’t going to let that slip again, so just being able to keep my composure and hold off one of the match points he had.”
Moments after Smith put Arizona ahead 3-2, Nick Lagaev won his match 7-6 (7-5), 7-5 to clinch the win for the Wildcats.
“Credit to ASU. I mean, this was the most competitive ASU team we have played in three years, and they really wanted to beat us,” Shields said. “I was really impressed with the way they came out and played. I was really proud of our team finding a way to win in a tough environment on the road with so much at stake.”
It was the first singles match in over a month for Herman Hoeyeraal after he had been dealing with a foot injury. Though he did not get the result he had wanted, dropping his match in three sets, it was still huge for him to get a full match played under his belt heading into postseason play.
Shields said playing Hoeyeraal in this match was the “plan all along.”
“In terms of competing for the conference championship tournament, making sure that he played in this match was crucial,” Shields said. “When you take a month-long break, it’s really hard to get back in match form and I was actually really happy it was a long match … I feel really confident now that he is back in our lineup.”
Hoeyeraal dealt with two stress fractures his freshman season, returned around the same time of the season and went on to clinch Arizona’s 4-2 win over Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament that year.
“If there is anybody who can come back after a long break, it is Herman,” Shields said. “I think he’ll be sharp and ready to go this week.”
