JON HELGASON/Arizona Daily Wildcat Junior Whi Kim and the Arizona men's tennis team take on BYU and UC Santa Barbara this weekend at home. First serve is Saturday at noon against the Cougars.

Whi Kim has known it all along, and it looks like Wildcat opponents are starting to figure it out too.

Kim was the first to say before the season started that the Arizona men's tennis team was a lot better then their preseason No. 62 ranking indicated, and he was right on cue, with the Wildcats starting the season with three straight wins. UA has moved up 14 spots this week to No. 48 in the national rankings.

"We are happy to move up in the rankings, but we still feel we are better than 48th," sophomore Paul Warkentin said. "It was nice to win last weekend, but we realize it is just two wins. I really think that we have a chance to get into the top 25 or 30 if we play the way we have been playing."

Arizona (3-0) has a chance to move up even more this weekend as it plays host to BYU and UC-Santa Barbara.

On paper, UCSB and BYU are two teams that the Wildcats should handily defeat, but Arizona head coach Bill Wright said the team can't afford to overlook any opponent with the Pacific 10 Conference season only a week away.

"The goal of every coach is to have their team ready for every opponent," Wright said. "They know that they have to come and play and I think they will be ready."

The success the Wildcats have had this season is due to the depth they have had from their No. 1 player all the way down to the sixth position.

Each position in UA's rotation has played well, which Kim said is the main difference between this year's team and the one that struggled last season.

"In our mind, we believe that we are better than our ranking," Kim said. "People don't realize the depth we have on this team. Our depth at the 4-5-6 positions is as good as anyone."

UA is undefeated on the season, but it has yet to capture the doubles point in any of its three matches this season.

"It's early in the season," Kim said. "We are still getting used to playing with each other. Once we get chemistry on the court we will be fine."

BYU (3-4) enters the weekend heading in the opposite direction of the Wildcats, but Cougar head coach Jim Osborne said the team's Arizona road trip to take on Northern Arizona and the Wildcats will be a turning point for the Cougars.

"We will be on the road, so both these matches will be a test for us," Osborne said. "We need to win these matches to make progress and to get us going in the right direction."

One thing going well for BYU is that it has received steady doubles play, an area that UA has struggled in.

"I like our doubles play right now," Osborne said. "We are doing a lot better in that spot. But in singles, we need more energy. We just got a little distracted. I think last weekend, we played not to lose instead of playing to win. We need to work on that this week."

First serve on both Saturday and Sunday against the Cougars and Gauchos is set for noon at Robson Tennis Center.