For the fourth season in a row, Arizona got to host the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament and for the fourth straight time it will be playing in the Sweet 16. But instead of having to plan a road trip for the next round, the Wildcats will be staying in Tucson.
No. 8 seed Arizona beat Clemson 4-2 on Saturday afternoon in the second round at the LaNelle Robson Tennis Center, advancing to the second weekend for the fifth time in school history, and as a top-8 seed will host the Super Regional for the first
time. The Wildcats (23-4) will face either No. 9 Oklahoma or USC next Friday or Saturday.
“To play the Super Regional here—we’ve had to go on the road (four) times—and we’ve lost heartbreakers. 4-3, 4-2, and we’ve been this close,” UA coach Clancy Shields said. “And to be able to do it on our home courts. I hope we can have the same crowd that we had. I mean, the energy was awesome, the band, everything. And so I’m just excited for next week. I want to celebrate this with the guys. We’re going to clean up some things, and let’s see if we can go punch our ticket to (the quarterfinals in) Athens. It’s been our goal the whole year.”
Unlike previous three years, when Arizona swept its first and second round matches, Clemson (17-13) was a much tougher out. The Wildcats took the doubles point but dropped a couple first sets in singles after all single-set victories in Friday’s first round 4-0 win over NAU.
“This Clemson team, they’re crazy strong,” said senior Jay Friend, who won 7-5, 6-2 at No. 1 singles. “It came down to the wire, and my heart just went a million miles an hour. But I’m so proud of the guys for getting it done today.”
Arizona was down or even early in all six singles matches, but the tide started to turn when Friend broke Clemson’s Viktor Markov at 5-5 in the first set. Around the same time, sophomore Zoran Ludoski rallied from down 4-1 to take the first set 7-5 at No. 4 and then sophomore Matthias Uwe Kask bounced back from a break to win a first-set tiebreaker at No. 6.
Kask, who was pressed into duty this weekend when Gilb Sekachov fell ill, then won his second set 6-0 to put the Wildcats up 3-2.
“He’s been as consistent as anybody on our team, we’ve just had such a good depth on our squad, he just hasn’t had opportunities,” Shields said of Kask. “But everyone on our team knows how good he is. He comes out and beats them in practice every day. We have nine guys that can all beat each other, can beat Jay on any given day in practice. And so when one guy went down with a sickness, we just said, all right, next guy up and just happy for him, because all that work that he’s been putting in, some people would just check out in February when they’re like, oh, I’m not playing. But no, he just doubled down and got better.”
Freshman Alejando Arcilo had a chance to end the match at No. 5 but lost the second set, which then led fans to surround Ludoski as he was serving up 6-5 for the match.
“I saw the crowd, people, everyone coming here,” Ludoski said. “So I had it in my mind, I knew that I have to close that match to finish, to bring that fourth point for the boys, for the team, and I just trusted my game.”
Ludoski was up 40-15 before getting overruled on an out call, then losing another point to force deuce. He then ended the match with an ace against Clemson’s Henrik Bladelius.
“The whole game I didn’t make one first serve and my coach told me to toss it a little bit higher to find momentum,” he said.
