TEMPE - After a strong start, Arizona needed a strong finish to hold off Arizona State in women's tennis yesterday.

Third-ranked Arizona (15-2 overall, 6-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division) took a commanding 4-0 lead, but dropped the next three matches. It took doubles partners Karen Goldstein and Stephanie Sammaritano's 6-4, 7-6 (9-7) win to clinch a 5-3 UA victory over No. 23 ASU at the Whiteman Tennis Center.

"It was a tough day. We won some really close matches today," said UA head coach Becky Bell. "We played a little bit better, and it was a great effort on our part."

After only an hour-and-a-half, Arizona had the four-game lead and was looking at a possible sweep. Arizona State (8-7, 0-7) then took the fifth and sixth singles matches, both in three-set victories, to force doubles play.

Vicky Maes, UA's top seed and nationally-ranked No. 1 player, won her 18th-straight singles match 6-3, 7-5 over Reka Cseresnyes. In doubles, however, Maes and partner Khristen Pietrucha lost 6-3, 6-2 to Stephanie Landsdorp and Katy Propstra. That's when the 27th-ranked team of Goldstein and Sammaritano claimed the doubles point, four-and-a-half hours after the match began.

"We have won some pretty big doubles matches all year, and knowing that in the back of our heads, we were a little more confident and we knew we could do it," Bell said.

The third doubles match between the teams of UA's Betsy Miringoff and Monique Allegre and ASU's Alison Nash and Torey Pratt was called with Arizona leading 4-6, 6-2, 2-0.

Sammaritano won her singles match 6-2, 7-5 over Landsdorp to claim her 27th win on the year.

Rounding out the wins were Miringoff, who downed Propstra 6-4, 6-4, and Goldstein, who beat Nash 6-2, 6-4.

"I don't mind playing on the road. We feel more like a team. We travel together, we eat together and we play together," Maes said.