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No. 10 Arizona men’s tennis opened up the NCAA Tournament at the Tucson Regional with a convincing 4-0 win over Denver on Friday afternoon at the LaNelle Robson Tennis Center.

It is the third straight season Arizona is hosting a regional in front of its home crowd.

“The first domino has fallen and we need (five) more to fall if we want to ultimately achieve our goal,� Arizona coach Clancy Shields said. “... Nine years ago when I took this job, we were just dreaming of being in the NCAA Tournament. I’ll never lose sight of how far we have come, but now that we’re in the moment, I think everyone wants to do something bigger. That’s my mindset. The first domino has fallen. It wasn’t perfect, but we did what we needed to do.�

Shields has consistently talked about the importance of winning the double point in college tennis. It was back-and-forth to take the critical 1-0 lead as senior Casper Christensen and freshman Filip Gustafsson took a convincing double break 5-0 lead on Court 3. They lost three games to bring it to 5-3 before Christensen held his serve to clinch the first doubles match for the Wildcats.

On Court 1, seniors Colton Smith and Inaki Cabrera-Bello fell behind a break 3-0 in their match. After Smith held his serve on a deuce point to put them on the board, they went on to take control of the match and win the next four games in a row to take a 5-3 lead. Cabrera-Bello held his serve to win the set 6-4 and clinch the doubles point for Arizona.

When Smith went to serve with him and Cabrera-Bello down 3-0, the mindset was just to get on the board and go from there.

“You got to stop the bleeding,� Smith said. “Two breaks is hard to come back from. It was definitely nice to be able to get that hold on that deuce point and to get that break back real quick.�

It was in singles play where the Wildcats took full control of the match.

On Court 2, junior Jay Friend cruised through his match with a 6-0, 6-3 win.

Sophomore Alexander Rozin followed closely after with a 6-0, 6-2 win on Court 6 before Zoran Ludoski clinched the match for Arizona with a 6-3, 6-1 win on Court 3.

“I think we were all very clinical today, throughout doubles, as well,� Friend said. “We all got to hot starts (in singles), a lot of breaks and a lot of first sets. I mean we won all six first sets. I’m proud of what we did because it’s always tough to beat a team that you should beat and Denver is a good team.�

On the other side of the Tucson Regional Friday morning, No. 20 Harvard defeated Washington 4-0. It was a dominant performance by the Crimson over the Huskies.

Shields was very open about Arizona needing to play much better on Saturday to get back to the Sweet 16 for the third straight season.

“We got to be excited for this challenge that’s coming for us,� Shields said. “... You know that this team is loaded with talent and I just hope our team comes out here and plays the way we play. I hope we have the seventh man out here in the crowd and I hope that the conditions are so gritty and tough that we can eat away at this team and our culture can win.�

In what could be the final home match for Arizona this season, the Wildcats will take on Harvard at 1:10 pm at the LaNelle Robson Tennis Center with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line.

UA women fall in first round

The Arizona women’s tennis team ends its season with a 19-11 record after losing to Illinois 4-1 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday morning in Charlottesville, Va.

UA won the doubles point, but the Fighting Illini (15-12) bounced back to win the four completed singles matches, at the No. 1-4 positions.

Illinois advances to face host Virginia in the second round Saturday.