Arizona Men’s, Women’s Tennis earn NCAA Tournament bids | News

TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) – For the second straight season, Arizona Men’s and Women’s Tennis are headed to the NCAA Tournament!

The Wildcats heard their names called in Monday’s NCAA selection show. 

Arizona Men’s Tennis

The U of A earned the No. 10 overall seed in the tournament. It will host Denver, Harvard and Washington in the Tucson regional. This is the Wildcats’ third straight season hosting under Head Coach Clancy Shield. 

Arizona opens up the tournament against Denver, the Summit League Champions on Friday. If the Cats win, they will play either Harvard or Washington on Saturday. Arizona played Washington earlier in the season, winning 4-3. 

The Wildcats bring in a 24-4 record to the Big Dance. 18 of those wins were sweeps. 

Arizona has been led by Senior Colton Smith and Junior Jay Friend. They are the 5th and 6th ranked singles players in the ITA, respectively. 

“This is the coolest thing to be able to do it with this group of guys,” Smith said. “We got a super young team. I’m thrilled to be a part of it and get to stay in Tucson a little longer. It means the world to have the Arizona army come back out and have all the fans supporting us. It’s something I’m really looking forward to.”

“I’m so proud of our team,” Shields said. “I’m happy they get to do it one more time in front of our fans. You always think on senior day, ‘Is this going to be it?’ We put together a really nice resume at the end of the year to be the 10-seed. We’re ecstatic.”

Arizona is fresh off winning a Big 12 Championship last week – it’s second straight conference tournament title (Pac-12, 2024). The Wildcats beat UCF, who beat them twice in the regular season, 4-2 in the final in Waco, Texas. 

However, Shields knows his team can’t come into the NCAA Tournament over confident. The Cats have to take care of business at home and likely beat No. 7 Virginia in Charlottesville to make their first Elite 8 in program history. They’ve lost in the Sweet 16 each of the last two seasons.

“It’s hard to respond after a huge high of winning a [Big 12] conference championship,” Shields said. “The first in our program history. Our task as a coaching staff has been important this week. How do we humble these guys? How do we bring these guys back down to planet Earth? Let’s put our heads down, get gritty and tough and defend our home courts. I think everyone here has been building for this. Every year Sweet 16. Sweet 16. Can we push this a little bit further? I don’t know. We’ll see. But I know there’s a motivated group to keep going.”   

Arizona Women’s Tennis

Arizona Women’s Tennis players are packing their bags for Charlottesville, Virginia. The Wildcats will play Illinois in the first round of the UVA regional on Friday. 

The U of A is on the rise under Head Coach Ryan Stotland. He has led the Wildcats to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, something that hasn’t been done since 2010-2011. They enter the the tournament ranked 30th in the country. 

“They’re obviously great teams we gotta go beat, but I believe in this team and this team believes in themselves,” Stotland said. “That’s the difference. In the past, we knew we were good, but we didn’t know we were great. Now this team understands we are great. We know Virginia is very good. We know Illinois is very good, but we can compete with them.”

Arizona is somewhat familiar with Illinois. The two teams played twice during the 2023 season. They lost 3-4 in the Blue Grey Tennis Classic before sweeping the Fighting Illini 4-0 at home in March. That was Tucson native’s Tanvi Narendran’s freshman season.

“I know they have a lot of new pieces and we have a lot of new pieces,” she said. “It will be different. We do have a little bit of insight and we’ve beaten them before. So that gives us some confidence.” 

The Cats take the courts against Illinois Friday at 7 a.m. Tucson time. If they win, they’ll face either No. 7 seed Virginia or Fairleigh Dickinson on Saturday.