It is safe to say that the men's tennis team was looking forward to this match more than any other this season.
Coming off a loss to BYU (1-7) last year that senior Whi Kim said hurt more than any other loss he's ever witnessed at Arizona, the Wildcats had no mercy this time around, beating BYU 7-0.
"It was a great win for us," assistant coach Tad Berkowitz said. "BYU beat us last year, and the guys still had bad taste in their mouths from that defeat. They came out fired up and ready to go."
Arizona won two of three doubles games to begin the day, with Kim and senior Tom Lloyd closing out the doubles point with a 9-7 win over Chip Hand and Alonso Medina. Down two match points on Kim's serve, the duo fought back and took the point from BYU.
"It set the pace for the entire match," Lloyd said.
The team of junior Colin O'Grady and sophomore Roger Matalonga remained undefeated in doubles, easily winning 8-3 over Tim Bradshaw and Dominik Kaufhold.
"BYU's strength is doubles," said Berkowitz. "They're well-coached and they play very fundamental doubles. To come away with the doubles point was big for us because we knew they were a good doubles team."
"It felt really good beating them," added O'Grady.
Arizona took the momentum from the doubles matches and carried it to the singles matches where it didn't lose a set. Kim, playing in the No. 1 singles position, led the way by winning 6-4, 6-2 over Eric Nyman. Lloyd defeated Ivan Kokurin 7-5, 6-2.
Roger Matalonga continued his dominance, finishing the nonconference season without a loss, by handing Chip Hand a 6-3, 6-4 loss.
The bottom of the lineup didn't disappoint either, as O'Grady was victorious over Nima Roshan 6-2, 7-6, Daniel Andrus beat Kaufhold 6-2, 6-1, and Paul Warkentin won 6-1, 6-0 over Bradshaw.
Arizona finished the nonconference season 6-1 heading into a tough Pac- 10 schedule.
"The guys wanted to finish the nonconference season with a bang, and we definitely did that today," Berkowitz said.
"It's going to be tough," said O'Grady about the road ahead. "We have everybody back and a lot of the other teams are a little bit weaker. Hopefully, we'll win more than last year."