Women regroup during Texas trip

After reaching its highest ranking of the season at No. 16, which preceded a three-match losing streak, the Arizona women's tennis team was on the prowl to get back to its winning ways during a weekend trip to Texas.

That is exactly what it did against No. 43 Baylor and No. 30 Texas Christian.

No. 26 Arizona came out on Friday and took it to Baylor with a 5-2 victory.

Arizona followed up its impressive win over the Bears with a 6-0 sweep of TCU.

The Wildcats' (4-3 overall, 0-3 Pacific-10 Conference) two wins put them back over the .500 mark for the season.

"We have had a lot of tough matches this season," UA head coach Vicky Maes said. "We had a lot of confidence going to Texas. Even though the scores weren't close, both matches were tough. Mentally, we showed our toughness."

The Wildcat success was led by sophomores Maja Mlakar and Kelly Perry, who each won both of their matches over the weekend.

Mlakar plays at the No. 2 position for the Wildcats, and she is finally showing that she has recovered from shin splints that made her miss two months during the fall season.

Perry, a transfer from Minnesota, impressed Maes by winning two tough matches.

Perry, playing in the No. 5 slot for the Wildcats, displayed the depth that UA has from top to bottom.

"Kelly and Maja played really well," Maes said. "Maja is beginning to put her game together, and I was really impressed with Kelly."

ASU downs men in heartbreaker

While the women's team had a successful weekend, the men suffered a heartbreaking loss to Arizona State on Friday.

The Wildcats (5-4, 0-3 Pac-10) lost the doubles point against the Sun Devils, and they split the six singles matches, which led to the tough 3-4 loss to its instate rival.

Going into the match, UA head coach Bill Wright said he expected the match to be close, and he was right on cue with his statement.

The match began with Arizona losing two of the three doubles matches.

All three matches were close, but Arizona was unable to come away with the doubles point.

That turned out to be the difference in the match.

Arizona won three of the top five singles match ups, and with the match tied at three, the final pairing entered a third and decisive set.

The winner of the third set would give its respective team the victory,

Unfortunately for the Wildcats, freshman Daniel Andrus lost the third set 4-6.

The men's team returns to the court this weekend to play host to Stanford and California and the women travel to the Bay Area to take on the Cardinal and Golden Bears.